Posts by Russell Brown
Last ←Newer Page 1 2 3 4 5 Older→ First
-
Oh come off it Tom, you don't think Key is loathed by the left. Why would Cullen call him a rich prick and a class traitor, why would the Standard and I/S, KBB etc dedicate so much space to commenting on his every word and action and so little on the positives coming out of the left? Be real please.
The Standard and KBB are very toned-down equivalents of Whaleoil et al. As Philip Matthews noted, Cameron Slater has 177 pictures of Helen Clark in a gallery on his site, a number of which he has taken the trouble to digitally alter, in some cases quite offensively. Now that's obsession.
And he's hardly the only one. The vile language used against Clark in the wingnutosphere defies belief. There is no equivalent at all on the other side. Be real yerself.
I actually get the feeling that at least since his compromise of the Bradford bill, the wingnuts are quite ambivalent about Key. If he does win this year, i think a lot of those people are going to fall out of love with National very quickly, because they are permanently angry.
The other observation would be that Key has traded a lot on his working-class roots. He didn't spend his whole childhood in a state house, and I went to the same school he did. It's a middle-class area in northwest Christchurch, not a ghetto.
-
Richard Worth is the Consul for Monaco, to New Zealand (and he used to be Consul for Colombia).
Which was the more glamorous?
-
Cindy Kiro supports the police in their inaction and Russell Brown supports Cindy. In my books this makes them little better than paedophiles themselves.
Chuck, we've discussed this. It was Kiro who actually brought that case to light in a speech condemning the conspiracies of silence that allow abuse to go on. You would not even have known about it had it not been for her.
The idea that this makes her "little better than a paedophile" is sick. And if you continue to abuse me in that manner, I will simply ban you. I have low tolerance for trolling.
-
Good to see an ex-pat investing some of his money back in NZ if you ask me.
He's actually done some really fine things: shipping condoms to Africa, funding development projects in rural India. He's like one of those American alumni philanthropists, in that he likes to see his name on things, but that's not a crime.
Although I think we can really rule out a career in politics ...
-
and all the plonkers in the media want to talk about is middle class tax cuts, smacking and non-existent "scandals".
There's a cluster of narratives in place now that will be hellishly difficult to break. Labour clearly had a plan to at least try and do so, but that's been upended by the Glenn story. Most people don't really think there's that much in it, but it leads the news because that's the story.
It's a bit like the last year of the Shipley government, although I'd argue that the government is performing far better at the business of government than that one was.
dc_red has a point: if the prevailing story was running the other way, Key would be crucified for that "we'd love to see wages fall" statement.
The thing is that at the moment -- to put it bluntly -- Key's shit doesn't stink. He really only has to turn up to score maximum points. He doesn't do all that much, but he doesn't shoot himself in the foot either.
-
i'm lucky if i can afford a dinner up at me local cafe, so Soul would qualify as swanky in my world (although it's not an adjective I'd use without tongue firmly in cheek, admittedly).
It was just a pointless adjective, aimed at trying to puff up an angle that didn't have much in it -- man has birthday party. Just say "at an Auckland restaurant". I think we can probably guess it wasn't Food Alley.
-
Interesting reversal. In the past Labour could always nebulously claim a high ground of having less money to play with.
I suspect they will still have a lot less money. The high ground was in being completely transparent about what they did have.
John Key said he didn't know who National's donors were on Morning Report today. My arse he doesn't. There would have been something to play with there if Williams hadn't done what he did.
-
I think the whole saga (more of a pamphlet, really) shows how easy it is to rattle Labour's cage, regardless of how slim the charges are.
Which is what made me think the Shipley-Roberts comparison was apt. Shipley could have handled that one quite easily, but she wound up misleading the House.
(Oddly enough, there was a genuine scandal around Tourism, but it was Murray McCully's appaling behaviour around the Tourism Board.)
However, I agree William's explanation of why Glenn's loan was not a donation was diverting away from the point.
Yep. If he'd just said that Glenn's last contribution was a loan to set up a more robust fund-raising system, it wouldn't really have been a problem.
I suspect he thought "loan" conjured images of cash-for-peerages a la Blair, but -- duh! -- those loans were chiefly a problem because they were hidden.
-
Mike Williams, a major liability for the Labour party - Discuss
Just a perception thing on my partI get the impression that he adds a lot of energy and rallies the troops well. His problem is when he opens his mouth in public : cf the "surprise" he promised before one of Cullen's budgets that raised expectations in a particularly unhelpful way.
-
You see, Richard, I'm not sure if you've gathered, but I really, really, really hated Magnolia. :)
I always feel affirmed when someone says that. Because so many people rave about how bloody brilliant it is, and I stopped watching it because I couldn't be arsed carrying on.
Last ←Newer Page 1 … 1968 1969 1970 1971 1972 … 2279 Older→ First