Posts by BenWilson
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Hard News: Criminalising Journalism, in reply to Kumara Republic,
That sounded like something straight out of Yes Minister.
In the sequel of which (Yes, Prime Minister), the PM says to Humphrey "You must always treat every microphone like a live microphone", shortly before squeezing every concession possible out of him. One of the only times that Humpy loses.
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A cynical part of me agrees with Russell's wedge hypothesis. That's why I've been saying that the other parties should steer well clear of this.
If it's a deliberate strategy by Key, it's an incredibly risky one. Alienating the media just before an election is madness, and speaks of confidence so high that sense has been lost. Yes, the media can be intimidated with threats not to talk to them, which hits their back pocket, but they can't really be intimidated by any other kinds of threats, indeed they live for them, they make them relevant.
It's incredibly short sighted too, a misreading of MMP. Even if the Nats don't suffer too badly at the polls, if they don't win outright, the media will be able to talk up that a government formed without the biggest party isn't an outrage at all, indeed it's the only answer to a government that won't even discuss policy. Even Granny will be saying this, if they're seriously being threatened with criminal charges for doing their jobs.
The only upside for National is that it draws attention away from policy, and it draws attention from every other party away too. But it's negative attention National is getting.
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Hard News: The perils of political confidence, in reply to Russell Brown,
It was brutal -- especially the tottering-off-into-the-distance shot at the end.
"Saruman, your staff is broken"
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Man this is quite hilarious. Talk about getting made an absolute fool of on camera. Banks, you're toast. No one like slippery evasion, memory loss, sudden memory clarity when presented with a transcript, stonewalling, and a walk away.
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Even Ol' Don Brash (ODB) thinks what's on the tapes is in the public interest. By which I presume he means that it's in his interest.
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Hard News: The perils of political confidence, in reply to Sacha,
And has been outperformed on that by Turei.
She has by far the best smile. At an unconscious level, I already like her. Similar to Key's effect on other people, but I just spent too long at a finance company, in the company of too many guys just like him, to fall for it. For a while, I sat right next to the "Chinese Wall", which separated the investment bankers responsible for all of the IPOs from everyone. I looked straight into their meeting rooms from behind glass, so spent a lot of time watching the body language without the voice, as they cut massive deals (J B Were did all of the big asset floats in Oz).
Key is boilerplate for that place, including all the faux popular jocularity when talking to workers, and a sudden tone change in private. There were never raised voices - all discipline and other confrontation was done methodically, usually by a team, many on one. Direct angry shop floor confrontations always were met with an instant retreat, and typically followed by being politely shut out of access to meetings, no responses to emails etc. And far more scrutiny of your performance to the ridiculously artificial KPIs that staff were required to work to.
The Chinese Wall was a bit of a joke - it was meant to prevent accusations of insider trading by stopping the bulk of employees from being able to freely walk into the area where all this secret dealing was done. I found, however, that all I needed to do to get past the secretary controlling the buzzer was to give my most winsome smile, and name someone in there, and she buzzed me through every time. And if I could lip-read I might have been able to make millions from insider trades.
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Legal Beagle: Infrequently asked questions, in reply to Sacha,
Unless the system were also changed to give voters power to re-rank lists.
That seems like a really good idea, and not just for the independents (who I think a dropped threshold would serve much better). Perhaps you could rank your candidates in the party you chose to vote for, if you so chose, up to as many candidates as you can be bothered with.
But personally, if we're tinkering with the electorate seat voting system, which is still FPP FFS. perhaps it could go to one of the other systems that gives proportionality a better go.
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Hard News: The perils of political confidence, in reply to Carol Stewart,
Yes, I can't quite work out why Goff seems to be concurring with the PM's line that it's all the rotten media's fault and everyone should just move on.
I can see why he would. It's lost airtime for Labour, and it's lost airtime about economic policy, upon which National can be asked some very hard questions. Also, he gets to trade on the same vibe Key is going for, about the right to privacy, without having anything to hide.
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Hard News: The perils of political confidence, in reply to Russell Brown,
And me -- with the proviso that it's not really new policy because people who fail to get to job interviews because they're off their faces are already marked down as failing to attend interviews.
There's an enormous difference between being off your face and failing a drug test.
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Hard News: The perils of political confidence, in reply to Sacha,
Nothing new here.
Yes, but it didn't really work out for Brash, did it? Bad advice.
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