Posts by martinb
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Just thought I’d say sorry to Bart or Keith if they found any of the debate unpleasant.
Sometimes I’m a little tounge in cheek which doesn’t necessarily come across, but also I can be a little be serially serious too.
Certainly not my intention to be personal or unpleasant. I’m sorry if it came across that way.
I guess I’ve found that a lot of people really don’t like Cunliffe, and I don’t really understand why exactly. I mean he’s a very earnest chap, but from my viewing seems to be genuine in his political beliefs and hard working in his efforts to achieve them.
I like Shearer too, shook his hand the day after the win, but I don’t know enough about what he would do or how he views the Labour party.
Anyway it’s Shearer! So discussion over! Let’s look at Banksie and co again.
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OnPoint: Dear Labour Caucus, in reply to Bart Janssen,
Hi Bart- is that aimed at me some?
I think as I set out I was disappointed in the tone of Keith's post. It set out to diagnose problems, then simply bagged Cunliffe's bid as the cause of those problems. Especially as I respect Keith as one of the best bloggers around, especially when dealing with fisking using facts and evidence. But this wasn't one of those posts.
I don't think I was unpleasant- but I wanted to know why he thought Shearer was so great and why Cunliffe got such a bagging from him. Certainly not all the problems of the Labour party are Cunliffe's fault!
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OnPoint: Dear Labour Caucus, in reply to Craig Ranapia,
Yes, the leadership team should have realised coming at a guy who's known strength is his work in a financial industry they had to look convincing with the numbers to minimise that strength not actively make it a weakness. This should have been part of the strategy. They had to know Key would attack their costings. They had to have those costings ready and to hand, as with strategies to deal with any attacks against the costings.
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Errr? I'm being slightly serious Rich. I think the National branding work in the electorates, always being in the local papers and so on has been very good in terms of visibility, whereas the Labour branding hasn't always been as consistent.
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To me it’s blatantly odd.
Sure I’m not a massive fan of Cunliffe. I think he should be living in his electorate, but hey many MPs don’t including Phil Goff. I do respect him though and his ability. I simply don’t know what Shearer’s ability is. He’s much newer and more untested than Key was.
I don’t want to put myself up as making the case for Cunliffe when he’s already done that persuasively himself. I’m really curious as to how he has pissed the clinical Keith Ng off so much! How did you become so convinced he is an insincere piece of …..work? I have to be honest this is the biggest denunciation of Cunliffe I’ve seen anywhere.
I could ask the same about Shearer- when he talks of renewal with the support of Trevor Mallard, Darien Fenton, John Pagani and Phil Goff what does that mean? (And I’m someone who thinks Fenton cops unwarranted digs, but I don’t think that is shared around here!)
You can’t be serious when you say those who, including people who haven’t ruled out a future leadership challenge this term, support Shearer are not doing it in order to advance their own political ambitions.
This post to me reads like two halves. The first diagnoses the problems of factionalism, deadwood and machine politics. The second half suggests without giving broad evidence that these are problems with Cunliffe’s bid alone. Dare I say it he is even scapegoated for things that a lot of other people also bear responsibility for.
I’m mildly pro-Cunliffe on the basis that when I’ve seen him he has had the info, answered questions succinctly, has shown clearly what his competencies and weaknesses are and he hasn’t pissed me or anyone I know that well off yet.
Shearer I simply don’t know well enough. He’s my local MP, but he hasn’t been a very public figure. I’m also far from convinced by his choice of office space in the electorate. It’s central, but the electorate is large, and it is difficult to see from ground level compared to the presence of Mellisa Lee’s space.
He would be uniquely inexperienced for the position and hasn’t made a strong enough case for me to overcome these uncertainties.
Still I think this leadership battle has been good for Labour- but if the cracks are papered over it could be worse.
Also last question: shouldn’t the guy who was able to understand the complexities of the telecommunications industry be somewhere on your front bench? There aren’t enough talented MPs in parliament as it is.
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OnPoint: Dear Labour Caucus, in reply to Andrew E,
+1
Lots of problems for Labour, but I'm not sure they are entirely represented by Cunliffe's bid.
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It's hard for me to read this without my glasses set to the correct thickness Keith, but does it say
"I'm not anti-Cunliffe perse, It's just that he is the robotic anti-christ who would spell dooooooom for everyone"
He is clearly evil as
A) he is a politician who wants to be leader (unlike all the luvvies and saints supporting St David the unambitious).
"if its frontbench is stacked with people who earned their positions purely as payment for someone else’s political ambitions, in order to advance their own political ambitions" It would be so sad to depart from the strict meritocracy that has previously ruled all political parties in New Zealand.B) he isn't authentic (which is obvious once you know he is the robotic anti-christ) as John Pagani mentioned in his Herald column and
C) he has been just working for himself not the good of the party, THE GOOD OF THE PARTY!
As for your conclusion, phew! I'd hate to see what you would decide on if you had decided you didn't like the guy. Some very harsh words here.
I'm sorry if I missed this elsewhere, but in the interests of the new dawn of constructive politics that will emerge when Shearer gets the support of all and Trevor Mallard too, could you tell us why you like Shearer?
That would be of most interest to me. You are unabashed about him, but to me I really feel I don't know enough about the guy. Certainly not enough to say I want him as leader.
All I know of him is one post on RedAlert about tertiary education which I liked and a genial presence at the traffic lights and Carols at the Rocket Park.
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Was listening to this about a group of independent investigative journalists in Britain and wondering if there was any openings for this in NZ...
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Herald says Carmel ahead by 10 votes...! Fingers crossed
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Hard News: The Next Labour Leader, in reply to David Stone,
Sadly have been trying to watch the video of this for days and not been able to.
Initially it said it was unavailable, now it says there is an error with the video. PA computer folk any ideas? It isn't flash or any of the other troubleshooting suggestions.
But from the people who did manage to view it certainly didn't say that Shearer had won it-
In fact here is the summation of the journalist in this tv3 round up:
"David Cunliffe owned it. He was direct, confident. He spoke like a leader. Shearer simply wasn't as sharp or strong".
http://www.3news.co.nz/Labours-leaders-to-be-debate/tabid/370/articleID/235119/Default.aspx