Posts by Craig Ranapia
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Hard News: The Next Labour Leader, in reply to Russell Brown,
I think he rather surprised himself when that came out of his mouth.
Sure, but when you're trying to position yourself as the experienced, safe pair of hands in the race you can't afford to be writing too many large cheques in interviews. :)
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Hard News: The Next Labour Leader, in reply to Christopher Dempsey,
Like many Green policies, this one will be ‘stolen’ by National at some point (probably he of the improbable hair).
I’d keep stolen in quotes there. I guess if you’re a “minor” party, you’re fucked if you do, fucked if you don’t and fucked no matter what you do. If the Maori Party and Greens secure any policy concessions whatsoever, they’ll get pissed on from the left as Uncle Toms and sell outs while the usual suspects on the right will have a collective stroke about New Zealand turning into North Korea. Can a good policy just be a good policy no matter where it comes from?
ETA: For that matter, I'm sure there was a certain amount of discreet eye-rolling over this campaign as Labour patted itself on the back (with much assistance from the media) for its "courage" in adopting policies the Greens have been advocating for years - and getting attacked as extremist flakes from the same quarter.
Looking slightly above the electoral horse-trading, I think the Greens could say shifting the centre of political gravity - slowly, painfully and unevenly - is also what green politics is about.
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Hard News: The Next Labour Leader, in reply to James Littlewood*,
By withdrawing, and doing so in a partisan way, Parker undid 6 months campaign work by reverting too soon to politics of personality.
Que? I'm obviously not David Parker's BFF (and if I was I'd be keeping my damn mouth shut) but why would he risk splitting the anti-Cunliffe vote if 1) he genuinely though that Cunliffe wasn't the best candidate and 2) he quickly came to realise that he couldn't win himself? Just not seeing the "partisan" "politics of personality" in play here, but am open to enlightenment.
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Hard News: The Next Labour Leader, in reply to Bradcar,
It seems fair to me to mention the lighter shade of blue thing, I mean, I was a member of Labour for a while and have since moved to the Greens, know why? Because the crew I see mentioned that are behind Mr Shearer are the same crew who took Labour to the Right.
You’re going to have to explain to this bear of little brains how Shearer is a Tory in drag, while Cunliffe is bearing the truth faith. It's a great sound bite for Cunliffe to be promising to re-nationalise on Q&A, but I think he's smart enough to know that's all it is.
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Hard News: The Next Labour Leader, in reply to Euan Mason,
I may not always agree with Cunliffe, but at least I know what he thinks.
I think we know what Cunliffe thinks on this, but he may end up joining the lost list of politicians who’ve lived to regret writing policy through the media.
And elsewhere, I don’t know about anyone else but a knuckle-dragging diss from John Tamihere has raised Nanaia Mahuta in my estimation. If nothing else, her winning the deputy leadership would lower the overwhelming stench of Caucasian testosterone and sweaty, beaten hairy chests in the room. :)
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It’s a weird (but not entirely unhealthy) thing, that if you mashed up Shearer and Cunliffe you’d have a damn near perfect opposition leader/potential Prime Minister. But I caught a bit of both men on the Sunday talk shows and think you’re pretty much on the money, Russell:
1) I watched Guyon Espiner bait traps for Shearer to show a lightweight noob he is - pretty much the narrative Cunliffe is passive-aggressively pushing. He's going to have to stop falling into them face-first, because while they're not fatal individually they do chip away at his credibility. (Hell, I couldn’t name Labour’s climate change spokesman either, but I’m not running for the Labour leadership.)
2) Someone in Team Cunliffe needs to tell him he's not just talking to the party faithful – and the caucus who actually get a vote –, but everyone else. So cut the sniping, and stay focused on your agenda and make it a positive one. I don’t think people are inclined to support parties perceived, fairly or not, as one where the front bench are preoccupied with friendly fire. Its not entirely facetious to say Tony Blair’s greatest electoral asset was the Conservatives themselves; ditto for Doctor No across the ditch. He’s been the happy, and entirely unworthy, beneficiary of the ALP going feral on itself.
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Coming home from a family wedding on Sunday, we stopped in Te Awamutu for a dish of tea and a gasper. If we'd been inclined to stay a while, the local cinema was not only screening When A City Falls but Wim Wenders' Pina (which is still damn impressive in 2D) and Werner Herzog's Cave of Forgotten Dreams (in 3D!). Next time you feel the temptation to sneer at the uncultured provincials, pause.
(And still kicking myself that I didn't have the spare time to catch the film in Taupo.)
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Hard News: How long the leash on the…, in reply to Sacha,
What, that the smiling assasin was too nice for politics? pull the other one.
Some wet llittle noob the formidable tag team of Clark and Cullen would rip to pieces without breaking a sweat? Yup...
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Hard News: How long the leash on the…, in reply to merc,
I would go so far as to say it is designed that way, literally racism by another name.
I’m not so confortable going there, but when Carol Thatcher voiced an offensive racial slur off-air and declined to give a sufficiently strong public apology after it hit the media, the BBC couldn’t can her fast enough. And so they should have. But when Radio One DJ Chris Moyles opined on air the only thing Polish immigrants were good for was prostitution, ironing and car repairs? Calls female listeners dirty whores? Opines that he’d like to rip the head off a competitior and “poo down his neck”? Shares the charming fantasy of taking Charlotte Church’s virginity as a 16th birthday present? Fag-baits will Young?
Meh, the proverbial wet bus ticket was brought out of storage ever damn time - and I guess being one of the most popular hosts on Radio One gets you a lot more slack than being a freelancer panellist on a modestly popular magazine show…
In a weird way, being willing to indulge bigots on a ratings-based sliding scale when you know better is actually worse than being a bigoted idiot. Fools can learn; someone who knows that bigotry is wrong but just doesn’t care as long as the marketing and ad department are happy? Bastards.
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Hard News: How long the leash on the…, in reply to Rich Lock,
Let’s cut the bullshit and get to the chase, because the BBC never will. There’s a straight line correlation between the Beeb’s tolerance for twatcockery and the ratings of the phallus concerned. (Another contributing factor, I suspect, is the likelihood of successfully being sued for breech of a multi-million pound contract.) After all the sound and fury over Jonathan Ross’ on-air arse-hattery, it wasn’t the BBC that severed its relationship with him – he got a better offer from ITV when his contract ran out.
Any comparisons between Clarkson and Messers Henry & Laws don’t need to be made explicit, do they? :)
ETA: Though, I guess you do have an interesting point, about how much of what people like Clarkson do is, to put it mildly, an enormous attention-troll. "Hell, who really cares what I think about this car? Doing a Nazi salute should be good for a half million spike in the ratings and some press." Which makes it that much worse, somehow.
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