Hard News: Barclay and arrogance
226 Responses
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Tom Semmens, in reply to
A tone deaf government who are walking blindfolded and still no traction from the opposition :)
Labour’s caucus is full of political deadbeats and no hopers who are just happy to be in the best paid job they are ever likely to have. They owe their jobs to factional horse trading rather than any discernible skill at the cut and thrust of politics.
Their lack of political cunning and mongrel political ambition shows through time and time again both in omission and commission.
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So why is Barclay hanging in, potentially raining down more damage on his party and leader? Why is [he] being allowed to remain?
I don't know, but I'm just going to nip down the supermarket and get more popcorn..... This looks like it's going to get quite entertaining! :-D
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Sacha, in reply to
factional horse trading
seems to underlie this Barclay debacle
#debarclay -
national.org.nz/toddbarclay has him as Deputy Chair, Law and Order Select Committee but parliament.nz does not. I guess the latter is correct - in more than one way - but now I am wondering when the "correction" happened.
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Doesn't he have some GCSB responsibility as well? That works.
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Tom Semmens, in reply to
factional horse trading
seems to underlie this Barclay debacle
Exactly! How that jumped up toff got the nod in the first place is the real mystery.
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Ian Dalziel, in reply to
His diction flattens right out when he’s fibbing.
Just heard him (English) saying that 'the police fully investigated it and it was completed' - you can almost hear the 'air quotes' on "completed".
More convenient semantics...
a regular Roget's Gallery! -
Sacha, in reply to
Roget's Gallery
outstanding #onya
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crazy!
Things are looking gnarly for Barclays all over it seems...
http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/world/93900575/british-bank-barclays-criminally-charged-over-21b-qatar-fundraising -
Russell Brown, in reply to
factional horse trading
seems to underlie this Barclay debacle
Exactly! How that jumped up toff got the nod in the first place is the real mystery.
I get a strong whiff of Simon Lusk in all this. He's been fond of bragging about the twentysomethings he's grooming for power.
And as we've seen before, it's creating a massive factional shitfight that will now begin to surface.
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linger, in reply to
a strong whiff of Simon Lusk
Why wait to get the
skunky scungy
dusky musky
right-of-centre scent of
… Lusk. Get Lusky!… S’gotta be better than Lynx, anyway …
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Cray cray extends to our old friend Colin Craig. http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/93899563/rachel-macgregor-countersues-colin-craig-for-defamation
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Ian Dalziel, in reply to
funky...
skunky scungy
dusky musky
right-of-centre scent of
… Lusk. Get Lusky!...or
'Join the Civet Service
and see the whirled....' -
Baby of the house on board...
...is taking a looong time to flatten out his stressful 'steep learning curve' it seems...
from May 11 2015:National's youngest MP is steering clear of social media for a while.
Clutha-Southland MP Todd Barclay, 24, has had a steep learning curve since he arrived in Parliament six months ago.
But perhaps the biggest lesson came when he posted a comment on his Facebook page, appearing to ridicule current affairs show Campbell Live.
.... Barclay posted on Facebook: "No surprises that it's only Labour Party MPs scrambling to keep Campbell Live running ... #goodjobmikehosking."
He later took the post down, replacing it with an apology: "I stand corrected, Campbell Live does have a lot of supporters. I guess it's down to personal preference etc."and so on in the same 'vain'
One of his first thoughts was of the impact on his family members, and what they would think.
The incident was representative of the imposition into his private life that had come with being an MP.
..."I think the personal sacrifice is probably the hardest thing, you know, if you've got a mate that's having a flatwarming or something like that and you've got something else on then you can't just say you want to go to the party." -
...and still it comes
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/93905944/allegations-barclay-invented-complaintsI hope Fairfax is paying Newsroom for doing such excellent work for Stuff to link to...
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Sacha, in reply to
so let's reward the original source with our linkylove instead: https://www.newsroom.co.nz/2017/06/20/35010/allegations-barclay-invented-complaints
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Why is [he] being allowed to remain?
Because as David Slack (not exactly a water-carrier for this government or National) just pointed out on Morning Report, because National has a constitution and processes around candidate selection and de-selection. And Bill English is no more able to unilaterally sack a duly elected MP who has become a political liability than Helen Clark was when Taito Philip Field turned into a sleaze magnet.
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BenWilson, in reply to
Yes, they put themselves on the map yesterday. Textbook playing of the PM, although I feel like JK would have probably not have looked like quite such a stunned mullet when getting the initial questions that required lies.
But then again, when you are caught red handed doing something like this, I don't think even the smoothest liar can keep up. To catch him out you only have to be lucky once, whereas to hide a lie like this for years you have to be lucky all the time.
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Ian Dalziel, in reply to
reward the original source with our linkylove instead
Good call.
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BenWilson, in reply to
National has a constitution and processes around candidate selection and de-selection.
I'm sure it does, but I bet it doesn't have a constitution that says that high up party members can't go and pretty much tell Barclay directly that he should piss off quick smart before he does any more damage to the party, drawing upon every kind of pressure that extremely powerful people have at their disposal. But I have to say, I hope they don't and this guy sits in Parliament like a broken rib, a free shot at every opportunity, right up until the election, and the party is forced to favour him and protect him. That will be a joy to behold. I'm not betting on it, though, I expect said high up pressure is already happening and the spin doctors are just waiting for the right opportunity to limit the damage.
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Sounds like there may also be video recordings, according to Barry Soper. Professionally installed CCTV, no less.
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Tory dick's dictatory behaviour....
" Barclay had confided he left a dictaphone running in his electorate office, recording his staff."*
What gets me is that he then had to listen back to the recordings in real time to discover content, how many days, weeks did he record for, even just once is bad enough - is this the best use of a highly paid Baby MP's time?
* http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11879941
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Just in case things aren't surreal enough for your taste, Fresh allegations Todd Barclay invented complaints against the staff member he secretly recorded
"I had received complaints about the conduct of a staff member from members of the public and I referred the matter to Parliamentary Services," Mr Barclay told the NZ Herald in March.
"As the legal employer of support staff, they acted as they deemed appropriate and embarked on a disciplinary process.
"It is an employment matter and as I've said in the past I can't go into details through the media.”
However, a letter from Parliamentary Services's general manager David Stevenson, cited by the Newsroom, says no such complaints against Ms Dickson were ever lodged with them.
"Parliamentary Service has neither received any complaint about you [Dickson] nor has it carried out any employment investigation or taken any disciplinary action against you,” Stevenson's letter said.
I've worked for an MP, and believe me Parliamentary Services are efficient to a fault. . If you're going to drag it into a political scandal, you better have all your receipts. It sure as hell will.
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At the risk of bringing up a tired question (sorry!), how do people think Labour is doing with its response to this, given it's the primary opposition party and the election's approaching?
I've just listened to Andrew Little's stint on Morning Report (from 6m30s), where he was given a good 5 minutes to talk about it. He made plenty of clear points about how bad this is for the government, said the usual stuff like how Todd Barclay should be resigning, and then told people they needed to seriously consider how much they could trust Bill English.... and by the way he didn't trust Bill English.
IMHO he's getting better at interviews, but what I didn't hear him talk about was how Labour would provide a better alternative. That seems significant to me because, especially after 2014, I don't really see how scandals like this have much effect in changing the government --- at least unless people can see a credible alternative. Check out how people are reacting in Gore -- they're just excusing the whole thing as typical of all politicians, and that it's okay because the Police decided they weren't interested. Everyone wants to excuse the behaviour so they can continue to vote for a National candidate with a clear conscience.
If they want to change the government, shouldn't opposition parties, Labour in particular, be out there telling people, both in that electorate and everywhere else, that they can provide Clutha-Southland with a much better candidate than Todd Barclay? In all of this coverage, I've seen zero mention of Cherie Chapman, let alone messages about how she has more integrity as an alternative to Todd Barclay. Shouldn't parties be explaining to voters how they're going to make it so their MPs and Ministers can't get away with the kind of stuff that Barclay's being accused of? What's the benefit of focusing so much on "government = bad" if you're not going to tell people how you're better?
Guyon Espiner even gave Andrew Little an opening, at the end, to comment on common views that all polticians are untrustworthy. I don't think Little really capitalised on it at all as an opportunity to spread a positive message about how Labour would ensure its own MPs and Ministers were held to a high standard. It's almost like he only expected to be talking about National, and wasn't expecting nor prepared to talk positively about the integrity of his own party.
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Joe Wylie, in reply to
Shouldn't parties be explaining to voters how they're going to make it so their MPs and Ministers can't get away with the kind of stuff that Barclay's being accused of?
I don't recall too much of that during the long, slow and often faltering pursuit of "Taito" Philip Field. There seemed to be extended periods where, apart from Lockwood Smith's dogged persistance, the old horror appeared set to brazen the whole thing out thanks to a lazy opposition.
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