Polity by Rob Salmond

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Polity: Bridges swims in troubled waters

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  • Kumara Republic, in reply to Sacha,

    not McCarten’s role. Labour do have a political advisor and a comms advisor now, but seem to be deluded that they can stay quiet until a year before the election like in the old days.

    Indeed. Like it or hate it, politics is now a 24/7 cycle like news media.

    The southernmost capital … • Since Nov 2006 • 5446 posts Report Reply

  • izogi, in reply to tussock,

    Hi @tussock.

    The only thing National’s doing incorrectly is refusing to publicly state the rules it really operates under. One might suggest that’s because they like winning elections, and lying about that just works better. [--snip--] The trick for making ministers behave is thus voting for the opposition. We were within about 1% of doing it last time, maybe get ’em next time.

    Maybe. But even if it did state their rules outright, I think people would vote for it when the likely alternative seems to be worse. Justify it to oneself as changing the rules for improved efficiency, by the way the PM is a multi-millionaire who didn't get what he has by being bound with bureaucratic red tape and clealy knows what he's doing, or whatever you like.

    I guess perceptions differ but through the last election my impression was that any number of people were, for whatever reason, just looking for whatever excuses presented themselves to write off and ignore all kinds of crazy messes from the government. Maybe information overload had something to do with it, too. Parts of the MSM were more than happy to analyse all the stuff going on in great detail, but people like John Campbell (that untrustworthy communist extremist, nice justification there) were slapped on the wrist when audiences started getting bored of the same-old lack of government response, and probably switching channels to nice happy faces explaining how everything was really perfectly fine.

    It's not like the attitude doens't go both ways, either. Labour was messing up plenty before the '05 election, but I guess it becomes easier for people to come up with excuses to accept that is okay, or fail to even consciously notice it, when the alternative likely to be something headed by Don Brash.

    I expect everything that's happened in the past few years will resurface at about the time the opposition parties figure out how to put up something which looks like a viable alternative. By then it'll be easier to look for excuses to dump the government than to keep the status quo, and there are heaps of excuses for anyone wanting them. But the whole viable alternative thing actually needs to happen.

    Wellington • Since Jan 2007 • 1142 posts Report Reply

  • Sacha, in reply to izogi,

    But the whole viable alternative thing actually needs to happen.

    and now, not in two years time

    Ak • Since May 2008 • 19745 posts Report Reply

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