Posts by Andrew E
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OnPoint: Dear Labour Caucus, in reply to giovanni tiso,
Yeah, I have to say, I can see how Russell's telling you off was just as, if not more, annoying than the actual subject of discussion. I too would be worried/offended if Labour/Green was viewed as the extent of 'the Left' in New Zealand.
In another discussion I was told that wishing Cunliffe had suggested that privatised SOEs be renationalised without compensation was outside the Overton window in NZ political discourse 25 years on from the Lange government. If that's the case, who drags the window back to the left if 'the Left' is defined as Labour and the Greens? Possibly the more democraticly run Green Party, but they appear to have shifted right in recent times, not left.
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Knowing someone's CV is not the same as knowing what they stand for, or where they want to take the Labour Party. It seems to
me that it would have been better to have had a longer period for evaluation of the candidates, a requirement that they articulate some kind of manifesto, and a franchise considerably larger than 34 MPs. I don't even know if any of the candidates advocated one member one vote for future leadership elections. -
Agreed. It would be a real shame.
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+1 for Gio's reply. I was simply going to point Damian in the direction of Manufacturing Consent.
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Damian, no belief in the VRWC here, just recognition of common beliefs, and interests, and therefore congruent actions.
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Bart, for myself, I think it is more down to a sense of sadness that Keith has temporarily departed from his normally high standards of fisking, and succumbed to the mucky game of passing off the spinning of unattributed sources, suggesting something ostensibly virtuous on the part of one candidate as a means of having a pop at an opponent. He’s better than that, and will return to form soon, I’m sure. It's not like the government won't be providing him with ample opportunities to do so.
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Not that odd that the Herald & Stuff are talking up Shearer when you consider how right-wing they are, which outgoing right-wingers are backing Shearer, and those newspapers' desire for continued Tory rule.
I am pretty ambivalent about this issue. The only time I've heard Cunliffe speak was a year ago, and he seemed disconcertingly open to PFI deals for public sector investment, IIRC. But the disingenuous bagging of him in this post, added to the Herald & Stuff backing, suggests that someone in the Shearer camp has been reading the Mandelson playbook closely.
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Not exactly a Flash Car, but a nice old motor, all the same. A Wolseley Six-Ninety spotted at the bottom of Boulcott Street, Wellington, in April 2006.
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I'm sure we all do, Bart. But the implication of the post appears to be that you can't be a disinterested Labour MP, wanting the best for the party, and the country, and also be a supporter of Mr Cunliffe. I'm not sure where the evidence for that proposition is.
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OnPoint: Dear Labour Caucus, in reply to Keith Ng,
Umm, short answer? No, not unless they're retirement-bound, like Goff & King (and arguably there is even the faint glimmer of future baubles to motivate them too).
Politicians are motivated by the desire to change things for the better (as they see it). But they quickly learn that you need a position of authority to effect real change (given that select committees here are so useless, and accepting the sub-domain of politics that they've chosen to enter). So, it is hardly surprising that a franchise made up of people who live and breath this paradigm will be motivated by naked ambition to improve their own chances of obtaining a position which will (supposedly) enable them to effect change.
In other news, the Pope today confirmed he is a Catholic...
