KP Repost: Kiss her you fool! Andrew Little, Labour and the TPPA

This was my first post on KP, just over a year ago, my how times flies.

Overall some of the names have changed (Goff has gone off to be mayor of Auckland, Shearer back to the UN and Key into political retirement) some have stayed the same (Andrew Little) and some have risen (Jacinda Ardern and Willie Jackson) but the sentiment and analysis here is still solid (I think).

Also the TTPA is off the cards but that was only ever just one area of the bigger picture (where’s Waldo?)

Its clear that after a year the position of Little and Labour has hardly changed at all and inaction is still the name of the game as it took Jacinda's easy win in Mt Albert to enable Little to build up the nerve to unseat Annette King, and that says a lot about how they get things done in Labour.

So with Key gone and English making a hash of things Labour now has a fighting chance but that ol indecisiveness remains and I think it’s going to dog Little all the way till polling day because if it’s been a year and he still can’t get it up then Viagra won’t help now unless it’s in racehorse sized doses.

The only noticeable change in Little over the last 12 months has been to take his glasses off; no new policy of any real sort, no clear action or direction coming out of his mouth and overall I think the audience’s opinion of him as not the man (or at least the personality) for the job has hardened from wavering to definite and that's bad for him. 

Look how easily the press and the public (mostly the press) jumped onto Jacinda and started tooting their horns for her but can’t seem to have the same enthusiasm for Little. Some of that is because parts of Labour are not fans of him but still, what a bummer for Andrew.

So we are one year closer to election day and Little has done very little in that time, the election is still Nationals to loose (although if English keeps on as he has been that will definitely change) and my recommendations for Little to take a page out of the Norman Kirk/David Lange playbook remain my recommendations (Andrew there is still time but it’s getting very late).

English will make it easier for Labour now that Key is gone but that by itself will not be enough and Little still needs to call the plays here or its defeat come September as Little cant bank on Winston coming into bat for him just because of the Super thing, all it will take is National to recant on that and Winston will be back sitting at the bargaining table while Little will be underneath begging for scraps and leftovers like some mangy, worm ridden, dog.

Most of the comments I got on this were positive except for people not liking my neutering comments about Labours manhood in the wake of Clark. Seems that was the sore point, hmmmmmmmm.

Around Waitangi day this year it appeared if Labour had final nailed its colours to the mast in terms of where it stood with the TPPA by stating that it would not sign the TPPA if it were in government*. This was swiftly corrected the following day by Andrew Little stating that while Labour opposed several aspects of the deal it would not pull out of it.

Also at this time several Labour MPs (Phil Goff and David Shearer) broke ranks and came out in support of the TPPA. Goff was allowed to do this (under the pretext of his previously being trade minister) while Shearer was not and subsequently censured for his actions.

In the months leading up to Waitangi day as the TPPA furore built to a head and was then sideswiped by the flag debate both concerned members of the electorate and political press were wondering aloud where exactly the party stood in the issue. 

More than one commentator had pondered where Labour really lay on the issue and how its failure to make clear its position was hurting the party not to mention that it was losing a golden opportunity to get some traction in the polls on an issue which seemed well suited to a low polling party desperate to climb out of the opinion funk into which it had sunk.

To be fair, Labour and Little have clarified their position after Waitangi and made it clear that while Labour is the “party of free trade” they oppose the aspects of the TPPA which infringe on the sovereignty of the Government to make law in NZ without being beholden to offshore and corporate interests. Some of these had been echoed on the party’s own website previously but a party website is hardly the forum to get the message out and its message in the public space on the issue had either been low key or just not getting any traction in the media due to statements lacking substance when compared to the rhetorical bedrock of the Greens and NZ first.

All of this makes sense in a spin doctor sort of way but there is an eerie disquiet around the party and its future in the face of the coming general election, its leadership issues, fall in standing in parliament, ongoing poor polling, the lingering stench of distrust that stretches all the way back to 1984 and the current inability of the party to clearly establish its position as the leader of the opposition.

To be clear, if National wins the 2017 election it will be the first time since Keith Holyoake that any party will govern for 12 years straight and at this time the election is Nationals to loose not Labours to win.

Despite the rising tides of sex toys, mud and vitriol being thrown and dumped on National MPs, John Key remains high in the polling as preferred Prime Minister and the party has based its electoral strategy on playing the PM personality card as strong as possible; going so far as to have Keys grinning mug on all electoral candidate’s billboards as if it was him and not the actual candidate that people were voting for, which of course was the strategy all along.

Nationals brain trust, despite its inability to stop living in the 90’s, was shrewd enough to realize that no one was going to vote for either the aging party hacks; which have infested the party like a persistent fungus and have dragged the party down time and again in various scandals and corrupt activities; or the flock of pimply faced geeks turgidly swollen with their own arrogance and self-importance without a clear and direct linkage to its one ace in the hole: John Key and his high polling popularity.

This has been Nationals game since Key took over in 2007 and is the only game the party now knows how to play. It’s been fantastically successful for both Key and the party and brought them back from the brink of political oblivion after the Brash Coup and religious/money infiltration in the early 2000s but its success is tied directly to Key’s popularity and the day his polling fails to make the nut is the day that the seat of power is up for grabs.

And this is the problem for both Little and Labour. It became clear after Helen Clark left for greener pastures that leadership in the Labour was not in abundance. As the cavalcade of neutered Clarkites came and went in succession before Little took the job clearly illustrated.

First in the wake of Helen there was the ever-smiling Phil Goff, like some grinning Labour doppelganger to Nationals Lockwood Smith, Goff and his ever present smile led the party into the post Clark world and lost the 2011 election due both to his own inability to fight Key on popularity but also due to that ever present factor in New Zealand politics: third term arrogance.

Labour after nine years in power had done what many third term governments do, simply forgotten how things work and acted like pompous douche bags (to be fair under Clark it was probably toe the line or get the cut and tuck but none the less) and their loss in 08 was echoed again in 2011.

Then the knives came out and in scenes familiar to those who were watching NZ politics in the late 80’s, the pretenders to the throne made their plays.

Next there was David Shearer, touted as Mr International he failed to make his mark on the electorate and his “sense” of his colleagues was ill judged as less than a year after getting the job the rumours were already swirling about leadership challenges and before he could celebrate the second anniversary of being in the role, and with an election approaching, he was deposed and another David stepped up.

Enter David Cunliffe, and then exit David Cunliffe. At no point was his position ever secured and his mark on the party was to lead it to a hideous beating at the polls in 2014. A beating that almost broke the party in the public’s eyes and gave both the Greens and NZ-First a shot of vitamins; making them more credible parties (by giving them room to grow) and helping to set up the Greens eventual usurping the role as moral leader of the opposition and Winston’s win in Northland (although it was Little’s age comment about Peters that seemed to really rile the electorate).

The key theme in all three of these “leaders” was the depressing air of abject impotence about them and all the reek of failure by men who truly know they are not worth the crown but will stake a claim none the less.

Then came Andrew Little, obviously hoping that the “three times a charm” magic of Clark would be bestowed upon him as it had her, after the dingbats antics of Palmer and Moore had been allowed to soil the top floor (and in Palmers case the balcony with his teenage saxophone solos) of the Beehive with their greedy dreams of power. Just as Shearer and Cunliffe had done their dash now it was time for the “real leader” to step up.

So the question that has yet to be answered is this. Is Little going to lead the party in the manner of Helen Clark or Norman Kirk or will he simper away and eventually be rolled by others with more ambition than him?

Up to this point; under Goff, Shearer and Cunliffe; Labour has tried to fight Key on his turf and at his game; ie personal popularity, the cult of personality and in the mould of US style leadership campaigning rather than promoting a broad social vision or attempting to energize the electorate, which were catalysts for both labour under Kirk and Lange.

And this is where the obtuse responses to things like the TPPA are going to hurt Labour. It’s not the issue itself in many cases that counts but a clear and unambiguous position to whatever the issue is which shows the party as a genuine party of the opposition and not a craven bunch of eunuchs waiting to see which way the wind is blowing before taking a position. In these areas, NZ First and the Greens have consistently taken up the slack left but Labours tepidity by clearly stating their position on an issue.

In recent weeks, there have been signs that someone has realized that ‘boring = stupid’, as the release of ‘10 big ideas’ about the future of work has shown. It’s not just a step in the right direction but an also indication that there is nothing to lose by floating out ideas, concepts or plans which are not just new and interesting but clearly in opposition to the staid, boring, innately conservative and business as usual approach that is the hallmark of the National government (in fact it’s all National knows but that’s a discussion for another time). Whoever is behind this approach clearly is not a victim of Clark’s neutering.

But is this Little’s doing? Is he behind this? In his time in the role, just over a year now, it’s clear that Andrew Little does not want to repeat the mistakes of his predecessors but it’s also clear that his current mode of politics is simply to play it safe, close the doors and wait for the Government to make a mistake, a wholly reactionary approach to politics and not one that is likely to endear itself to the electorate, nor one that will reap any serious dividends while the Teflon on Key is still in effect and the innately conservative approach of his party does not offer up many opportunities to strike.

And even when opportunities have presented themselves (such as the TPPA, Serco, refugees or even things like the Canterbury Rebuild) Little has played it safe and stuck with comments which do little to give any indication that he would have done different or actually shows any passion on any issue.

In part this is because of the process by how Little came into the top job in the Labour party and how the cabal of professional politicians, which occupy much of the upper ranks of the party, don’t want him, never wanted him and would happily see him out and replaced by one of their own.

To start, the rise of Andrew Little to leader of the party came through the strange electoral mechanics of the Labour party itself (40% caucus, 40% party and 20% union). The close race between Andrew Little and Grant Robertson showed that when it came down to the wire it was the 20% of the union vote which gave Little the job and not any hearty support from those he sits in cabinet with.

Relics of the Clark years like Goff, Dyson, Mallard, Shearer, Cunliffe, Cosgrove, King and Parker show there is a core of hardened professional politicos who have less to do with representing their electorate and more with ensuring they remain in paid employment as their options outside the safe confines of politics are dim (for those thinking I’m picking on Labour here don’t worry National is in a worse state with its dead wood but again that’s for another day and they at least have the magic of John Key to keep them in their day jobs).

It’s safe to say that not all of these long-term politicians are fans of Andrew Little in his role as leader, a fair few didn’t vote for him or want him there (Grant Robertson swept the caucus and the party votes in the leadership election and it was only the vote spread for the other candidates in the first round (Parker and Mahuta) and the 20% union vote which allowed Little to pull ahead in the second and third rounds).

And this is where it gets all Game of Thrones for Andrew Little, complete with incest, violence, sex and lashings of intrigue. He must fear the knives which are all glinting out there, just waiting for his exposed back, hidden behind friendly smiles and handshakes at the party meetings.

It’s clear that this fear of making a mistake is part of the reason why he has spent the last year doing little to lead the party on the attack and plenty of time trying to consolidate his position.

But again, to go back to an earlier point; the coming election is Nationals to loose not Labours to win. Labour is going to need more than a spiffy training montage set to 80s synth rock to make the grade come the main event. Plucky underdog it is not!

In the short, gut based analysis of the situation it appears that Labour, like the current crop of republicans in the US, would rather harm its own chances of election rather than let “that Little bastard” have the job of PM. The only difference is Little is nowhere on Par with Trump.

But Andrew Little is also not Norman Kirk (an innately popular politician who lead Labour through two loosing elections as leader before winning the third on a combination of his own personal appeal but also by building the party up as the answer to a stagnant National under 12 years of Holyoake). 

Little’s popularity is low and the prospect of facing him off against a still popular Key is akin to throwing kangaroo meat into a lion enclosure. Nor does Little have the luxury of losing two elections before winning it in the third. The day after electoral defeat in 2017 is the day that he will start hearing more than one blade being sharpened.

Little can perform in the house but this is as far as any strategy of playing Key at his own game (that of popularity/personality) is going to work as in the general media he comes across as a concerned vaguely liberal uncle. Not a sandal wearing tree hugger but a quiet, responsible person who has never kicked out the jams in his entire life and who certainly would not mug for a selfie, pee in the shower or dislocate his jaw while deep throating a hot dog.

In fact, while Andrew Little is certainly not a man in the mould of Norman Kirk he could take a leaf out of Kirks playbook in regards to how he and Labour won the 72 election. Kirk went in with a new platform, a new manifesto of change and better things ahead and swept the field, winning a margin of 23 seats and a mandate to make NZ anew. And this was after two previous losses to National in 69 and 66. The situation is not exactly the same but the parallels are significant.

Of course, it is not so easy under MMP to pull off such a feat but the current state of Labour at this time shows no indication of even moving in this direction (its 10 steps as the noted exception). Perhaps there is a grand strategy hidden away behind closed doors, just waiting for the right moment to put it into operation.

If so then it could be a long wait as politics, like romance favours the bold, not the plodding and the mood of the NZ electorate is like that of a crowd watching a romantic comedy where the male lead can’t get up the nerve to make the first move and the audience is yelling “Kiss her you fool!”.

That’s right, like having kids, there is no special time to do it and Andrew Little has a fair few seeds to sow between now and November 2017. Labour will not take any future election alone unless there is some firebrand, walking talking Jesus figure hiding away who can better Key in the selfie mugging, showering peeing and hot dog fellatio stakes (in fact the only current contender in this area for the golden hot dog would be Winston Peters, but Peters would never stoop to going down on a processed meat product).

This means that while it’s not simply enough to roll out a new plan for NZ Labour also must get the Greens and NZ First to buy in as well (or more likely accept some of their policy ideas into their own intellectual portfolio).

So while the TPPA remains a missed opportunity and the flag debate is done and dusted there is still time for Little and Labour to step up their game and take it to the hoop. If they don’t Key will rule for 12 years as PM, the lizard people will finally take over and Labour may as well just give up the ghost.

Labour can’t fight Key in the personality stakes and can’t remain inert and neutral in the face of Keys capture of the middle voter NZ (all 37% of them). As I have said before now is the time for Hail Mary’s and wild new ideas. If Little has looked at the mood of many western states across the globe he may have noticed the polarization of voters and the rise of those promising a change to the squalid BS of the established order.

While Andrew Little is no Jeremy Corbin or Bernie Sanders he doesn’t have to be to win over NZ. What he needs are some new ideas, some new faces, the courage to take the issues to the electorate and the humility to not treat the required coalition partners like serfs under a feudal lord (as Labour has been known to do). Labour may lose come 2017 but they certainly won’t win playing their current style.

Notes:

1)       I swear I saw this article come up online on Waitangi Weekend but subsequent searches have failed to locate it since, it could have been an overeager journalist but the fact that it was followed a day later about Labours party retreat and Little allowing Goff to walk on the issue seems to me that it was something said in haste and then rapidly backed away from.

  Original post from KP here.

Elections 2017: Reposts from KP

Before I started my own blog I was over on Kiwipolitico, posting my gibberish there and lowering the tone of the debate by several degrees (much to Pablo's chagrin).

And some of the posts I did over there were my analysis of the various political parties that make up NZ politics, done in my usual inimitable style.

So with an election coming it seems timely to revisit the various teams who will be competing in the Olympics of banality; thus I will be cutting and pasting (some might say "re-posting" but why lie about it) those posts from there to here because why reinvent the wheel.

Most of the things said then seem to hold up now, give or take a few personnel changes, but I will be updating where need be and it will be interesting to see if any predictions I made then still hold now (don't hold your breath they probably wont).

And for those who think this is being lazy, your probably right but if it aint broken why fix it and there will be normal posts as and when I write them.

First post will be tomorrow and with one a week or so until all the players are on the field and the battle joined.

Suicide is painless!

If Bill English could have waited till after the election to announce the raising on NZ super for anyone born in 1972 (the year of my birth) and after will work to 67 then they might actually get into government.

But as Chris Trotter rightly says, English has blown it.

In my previous post I noted the dynamic in play with National feeding the beast that is Peters and English has just gone and handed him the biggest, baddest club he could ever want to bludgeon National with.

Not to mention all the other parties who will be receiving their high quality, hand made, boutique clubs by express courier any day now. Courtesy of Bill and the B-Team.

In my last post I noted the dynamic of Peters haunting NZ politics, well now its a full out paranormal situation, who ya gonna call?

And speaking of phones you can bet that Andrew Little's phone will be running red hot as he calls the team together for an urgent meeting and congratulatory session because English just unofficially kicked off the election campaign by giving them a badly needed issue to rally people around.

Labour and the Greens now have a ready made foil for any stupidity they might themselves do, just roll back the age of entitlement or say anything, absolutely anything, that will position themselves as far away from National as possible and people will forgive them because they are not National, simple as that!

Its incredible how fast the edifice that John Key built, nurtured with his blood, sweat and tears for a decade has been demolished by Bill English.

One stupid statement after another: first water, then immigration and unemployment and now retirement.

In one week he has had three media frenzies and backed three highly unpopular positions.

It doesn't matter if he is right to wrong on them, what matters that it should be clear to someone such as him that you don't utter them six months out from an election!

WHAT WAS HE THINKING?

And for all those younger readers who might not have been paying attention during the 90s, this is a taste of what it was like under National then and you will also now have a good idea why Helen Clark ruled for nine long years.

Also I now know why John Key got out when he did.

Not much more to say on this matter as I said it all in my last post but while Trotter does the situation justice with words I leave the final note to this particular song by the Manic Street Preachers, feel free to dance along to it and ponder its meaning applying to the National Party and its chances of winning the election now.

Why everything happening in NZ politics right now is inconsequential.

Its been a strange few weeks in NZ politics, lots of stuff has been happening but most of it does not really mean anything which is why its been difficult to find anything to write about.

Its the political version of talking loud and saying nothing.

Thus I find myself writing not about the events but the fact that I cant write about them (meta irony at its finest).

Labour's Great White Hope*

First the Mt Albert by-election was won by Jacinda Arden, no surprise there, it was a safe seat and National was not even fronting. Add to this the cordial relations among the three remaining candidates and it is no surprise that Labour won.

Nor was it surprising that Jacinda Arden won with less of a margin that the previous Labour candidate (who was then against an actual National candidate rather than this time when National could not even be bothered to show up) as the lack of actual political competition in such a safe seat was never going to energize the voters to get out and cast their vote (the why bother theory).

Neither was it surprising to hear National (or various sections of the NZ political blog-sphere) fire off a few poison barbs about her political  inexperience (or that she once worked in a fish and chip shop) despite being in politics for nine years because, point of fact, it was true as Arden remains a political lightweight and showing no indication of being the next Helen Clark despite all those nine years.

Slightly more surprising was the ensuing braying of the media regarding what the victory meant and the subsequent removal of Labour deputy Annette King, obviously clearing the way for Jacinda to ascend as queen but then again King was well past her use by date so again its shows how porous the upper ranks of the Labour leadership is when a non competitive election outcome  (and a win by the way!) can prompt a change in the deputy leader.

So predictable election outcome, predictable media scrum, semi predictable snide remarks from the opposition (and in some case from the same side) and vaguely surprising shift in leadership change.

And as for the Greens and TOP candidates they may have made a friend in Jacinda but that's not really what being in an election is about. In essence they wasted time and money faffing around playing at, playing at being in an election (double irony).

It would have been preferable that they just step aside and concede the whole thing prior, allowing Jacinda to sweep in all by herself rather than giving her, and Labour, a false sense of security about the coming general election by giving the facade of  political competition when the whole thing was a cake walk from the get-go.

Which is probably why there was a sudden rush of related satirical articles in the media (here and here and this piece  by Chris Trotter, who I assume is being satirical) because when faced with farce masquerading as hard politics the only natural response is to take the piss in one way or another.

And if that's what prompted the removal of Annette King I wonder what will happen if Labour were to actually win a seat in genuine competition or (god forbid) loose a safe seat.

But that does not mean I don't like Jacinda or think that she might develop into a genuine leader but I have to balance that thought with the fact that nine years in politics she has little to show for it and come September she (and Labour) will be facing a National holding the political high ground (if it can keep its act together (see below for more of that) and there will be no feel-good free passes then which begs the question of what actual good came out of the by-election other than a potentially dangerous, false sense of security.

The end result was a parade of mundanity and political inflation which spawned far more headlines and speculation that it deserved.

Bill English has a Drug Problem

But if you think I am taking the stick solely to Labour again don't worry as there is plenty to go around for the others because Bill "why aren't you John Key?"** English ripped the fleshy skin mask of his old master off his face this week to reveal what exactly was lurking underneath.

In making the desperately bizarre attempt to link Nationals immigration policy with the completely made up factoid that the unemployed are all stoned out of their minds and then have the gall to double down on it a few days later was to show exactly how crucial John Key was to the facade of National (and that's not even getting into his "problems of success" comments regarding the housing-hernia in Wellington which does not even merit a comment because its just so head in the sand that you have to wonder what his definition of success is).

Gone, in a moment, was nearly a decade of careful media manipulation by Key and his spin goblins to blank the public memory of how bad things were in the 90s with National in charge and instead, there it was grinning like a SS cap badge in the morning sun for all to see.

Now its clear what Key was desperately hiding all these years and English undid all that work in one single nasty comment, immediately reminding the public what awaits come a National electoral win in September.

So get ready for more beneficiary bashing, say goodbye to the cloak of middle ground politics, expect absurdist statements galore, the party doing the inevitable violent lurch to the Right (as so many within have been waiting, panting away with baited breath, for so long), a National secure in its arrogance and hubris and not giving a flying feijoa who cares what it is doing (are you listening Winston?).

And it did not go unnoticed that English was doing his best to channel the spirit of Donald Trump by wheeling out the kind of alternate facts that would be well at home on talk radio but less so coming out of the mouth of the man not known for such froot-loop statements and more for bland/dull if not pragmatic policy utterances.

Not that English cares about what people (or more correctly the proles) think as its clear that the recent poll results (with him topping out as preferred PM) have obviously gone to his head so much he feels secure that he can spend some of that shiny political capital making statements that his old master would never have made or at least done it in a jokey way that would allow for some deflection if things went negative.

But no English said it with a straight face and obviously cannot see what he has done.

Because if there was one secret to the magic of Key it was that he was able to neutralize opposition by playing the blokey kiwi every-man card and playing it so well that his opponents could not find anything substantial to grab on to when it came time for criticism  they threw to stick.

Sure Key had his detractors but that was not the point, they were a minority when it came to keeping his polling high and he was never going to win them over but the all important middle vote on the other hand; make a rape joke here, felate a hot-dog there, mug for a selfie and she'll be right mate!

But alas poor English has pissed that advantage away and the media reaction was swift and sure and almost entirely negative.

If National had made themselves look bad with their ridiculous statements about water quality then this was even worse with its instant links to Trump in the US and all that such an association entails.

Sure unemployment does not resonate as well with the National voter as the environment might but with the middle voter it will and that margin is thin enough already so shedding any voters simply by making foul utterances is not a vote winning strategy in an increasingly tight game.

For every current National supporter backing "dollar" Bill for telling the truth about "bloody dole bludgers" there was also one who had the sudden and sharp reminder of Jenny Shipley, Ruth Ricahrdson, Jim Blodger (and all the rest of the mutants) and a 90s (or even an early 2000s) National which was hated and despised by many and only made it back into power in 96 because of Winston's toxic favor (really, Winston are you listening?).

And while it might do well to buff up the National faithful it will also erase the smooth edges on the Teflon suit Key bequeathed English and allow things to stick; things like criticism, scandal and negative commentary. Hate does that.

John Key was the false front hiding the National of old behind a nice shiny new facade thus it was only a matter of time once he was gone that it things would revert back but still the PMs office has only just been redecorated and now its been soiled by Bill English doing his best to appear staunch by taking a cheap shot at a demographic which has the least means to fight back.

Its also the kind of prejudiced generalization that is only one step away from racism or some other foul ideology (such as Neo-Liberalism) and as such flows directly against the current of most politics in the last 15 years.

So English might have had a few brain bubbles when he saw his latest polling or maybe its his own memory that's faded regarding the brief period in the early 2000s he was chief cook and bottle washer for the whole rotting garbage heap that was the party before Key took over and brought them electoral success, but too late now, whats done is done.

The funny thing is that this was always going to happen and its an expected outcome on the natural decomposition of the dead flesh of National that Key was always keeping mobile only through his dark magic.

But again its really inconsequential, this was what we were all expecting and its effect on the political dynamic that's building up to the election in September is what it is and was always going to happen.

National without Key was always going to revert to its previous type and start to remind everyone why Labour and Helen Clarke were in power for nine years.

Therefore expect more statements from English and Co over the coming months as the real "compassionate catholic" inside him comes out of his mouth loud and clear for all to hear.

Cui Bono?

So why are the last few weeks of action on the political front inconsequential?

Who benefits from a deluded Labour and mean mouthed National?

The one person who will, and has previously, made hay out of exploiting the dead ground between the two and has so often decided the fate of NZ politics.

The one, the only, Winston Peters!

Peters was supposed to be on the back foot with Gareth Morgan throwing his hat into the ring but Mt Albert showed that while 600 voters thought that TOP was groovy and stuff that will be nothing to a riled up Winston flogging his supporters into a frenzy over things like National even discussing the idea of raising the age for NZ super*** not to mention his usual per-election swings of his political mojo.

Peters is in his element with a rabid government to hand him issue after issue, poison statement after poison statement which allows him to simply react to anything they do rather than do anything himself. He lets them make the first move and then he plays his hand, the same hand he always plays to great effect and for every nasty statement in the media about the government there is Winston saying the opposite and drawing in all and any voters who don't agree but cant find it in them to vote Labour.

You would think English would have twigged to that having been in politics as long as he has because its the same rule as the internet (don't feed the trolls) and Winston is New Zealand's number one political troll par excellence.

But nooooooo, its that old National spiteful arrogance coming through, they just cant help themselves and it will tar the whole party and feed all but the pure blue voter to anyone but them.

And thus we are back to that hideous, inevitable state where the election is back in Peters hands and all the actions taking place this week have been nothing but minor moves on the political chess board (a pawn here a knight there) while the big pieces are blocking the lines of movement, checkmate continues to loom threateningly and Peters has the power to turn a lowly pawn into a queen (I will leave you to guess which kind).

Just as the spectre of communism haunted Europe so too does the spectre of Winston Peters (or more correctly his capricious nature) haunts NZ politics.

If parties are strong then his power is diminished (as evidenced by both most of the Key, and part of the Clark, governments); but with political power in National sure to wane and Labour still in the mire his ability to decide the outcome is a definite maybe, so no surprise that his number remains of the speed dial of a few leaders.

So forgive me if I have found little to blog about at the moment while I cook up ideas and research for a few left of field posts that I am working on because when one sees the monolithic inevitability of the situation come September 2017 (barring some seismic shifts), consider ones mind is blown.


*-If your unaware of what that term means then check this out
**-apparently the first question the PM was asked when he turned up to open a new school in Christchurch this week.
***-while having dinner with Q in Wellington last week he had had me in hysterics when calmly noting  over his Fish Sambal that any politician who had an agenda to hurt cats (like Morgan has) was not going to go down well with a large proportion of the NZ first voter base (something that Morgan is desperately coveting) because which elderly, cat loving, septuagenarian is going to vote for a man "who wants to kill Mr Fluffy?"

Filthy disgusting toxic scum!

 Edited to include 110% more rant.

While Labour is locked into some aimless struggle with the Mana and Maori parties over the soul of Maoridom, or more correctly the Maori vote (because none of those three really seems to be committed to actually improving the lot of Maori (unless Maori equals the tribal elites or party members themselves)) and The Mt Albert by-election has turned into some weird political bonding session, National has been running silent and running deep, trying to stay out of the media spotlight and happy to let the other parties get all the attention.

Bill English seems to be operating with his MP's like my father did when he took me and my siblings on long Sunday drives when we were kids.

Pack two adults and four boys into a Morris Minor and then drive out into remote, rural Southland, follow random roads or drive out to a then existing meat-works to buy large bags of chicken pieces to stuff in the boot or check the local rivers for a good fishing spots and see how long it takes before boredom turns the cramped back seat into a battleground.

My father would tolerate about five minutes of assorted ruckus before turning round and bellowing, "Shut up and sit down!" in his loudest voice, stunning me and my brothers into silence for about five minutes before we would inevitably start up again and again get shouted at.

Rinse and repeat for an entire Sunday afternoon, except for brief punctuation for an ice-cream or, if Dad was feeling generous, a stop for fish and chips and cold cans of coke (perfect for helping the grease harden in ones stomach). Its one way of family bonding.

English seems to be operating a very similar strategy, keep out of sight on political back roads, surfacing only for a brief comfort stop before disappearing again into the countryside. Keep out of sight, play it safe and say or do nothing that will cause a commotion.

So when Bill and Co surfaced this week (like the monster from the black lagoon out to menace some helpless female (played this time by the environment) to unveil their new fresh water policy I had a funny feeling in my stomach, and it was not from swimming in one of my local, and polluted, rivers.

Neither it seems was I the only one to think so with a range of nothing but highly skeptical response in the usual suspects in the political media (no links this time as far too numerous) with only  the faithful over at Kiwiblog in agreement (nice try guys but this one was a bridge (over a toxic and dried up river) too far).

The reality is that, as predicted, English and co have nothing in the tank to take them into the election but a series of feel good but meaningless policy statements and the usual election year bribes to hand out, and it shows.

With Key gone the polls still show English as preferred PM but lets not get to caught up in that as English is not going to be able to front like his old master did when it comes to the hard questions or when the next scandal hits.

And lets pause for a moment to give John Key some praise on this, like the true speculator he was he was not looking at the market now but looking ahead and got out at the peak of the market, sold his shares and vanished from the collective memory, just like I predicted he would.

But so far English has been able to let the spotlight fall on the various other parties and their struggles as they try and grab a piece of the political pie but the latest poll results showed that while English is up National is down and its another seven months of likely downs before polling day, even at a modest one or two percent for even a few months leaves National totally beholden to NZ First and with a semi resurgent Labour angling to make as many deals as possible to get across the line ahead of them.

Poll degradation in an election year, like universal heat death, is inevitable and English knows this. He knows that the more exposure he gets the more the polls will go down so the evil little gremlins in Nationals spin cabal have identified a few critical issues and preempted the deal by sending gormless fools like Nick Smith and Judith Collins out to spread the "good news".

Only 23 years before rivers are safe to swim in, no mention of toxic dairy or how we got there; or Judith Collins saying that fuel companies better co-operate with the Government on its pricing inquiry but she wont be doing anything about it.

Yep that will keep our polling up.

Worse than that is which of the slimy and toxic beats which make up his cabinet can he let front for any period of time without saying something wrong (Jerry Brownlee must be on a very short leash by now given his propensity to bellow at all and sundry the moment the kaka hits the fan) because none of them have any public persona which people want to see.

Those on the right wing like to always see themselves as realists but the only realist over there packed his stuff up and bolted in early December. The rest like the true political scumbags they are, continue onward knowing (in their hard little hearts) that there is nothing else but this vile game they play, the charade they like to call politics.

I wonder how many of them desperately try and convince themselves that they are actually liked by the general populace or the voters in their electorate, or even their office staff (as both Paul Foster Bell and Todd Barclay well know) because if you can read the above linked article and look at of a photo of ruddy faced Nick Smith holding up a glass of water (knowing what he has done for the environment and not to mention DOC) and not feel your stomach turn then your one of the true believers (god help you).

The environment, that 100% clean green, marketing slogan we hold so cherished is now falling apart with 30% of rivers in a state less to swim in, yet its as much a tool of a greedy money hungry clique of soul sucking miscreants that they can go out and lie with a straight face about wanting to do anything about it.

2040, like that ridiculous target for being pest free is so far away in political terms I am surprised that they have not promised we will all be living on the moon by then with a mortgage free house  made of gold for all and a fair and just society abounding.

I mean why stop there, if you gonna lie go big, just tell a bald faced outright lie because if the water issue is going to be honestly tackled it will also involve tackling the dairy problem (yes it is a problem now) and the attendant farmers and Fontera, and National has no plans to do any of those.

And this is the poison that flows through the veins of National today. Labour might be stuck in its own toxic mire and unable to see the reality for the ideological blinkers it has on but National is nine years in power and leaving things demonstrably worse than when they came in so a sudden smattering of warm fuzzy policy announcements while English and a few select stuffed shirt line up on a river bank and try and look concerned is not going to wash (it was not even a public event, just the media scrum, the the third photo in the article knows)

Sadly Kiwi politics remains as doom struck as ever and the antics of National remains the perverse purview of atavistic avarice as the greedy hustlers which constitute the party simply enact another screen to deceive the public long enough to disconnect the growing concern about who exactly is running the country and where its actually going.

As I said in KP middle of last year, National is a dead man walking once Key goes and now that he is gone the Zombies are shuffling around, sniffing for brains and generally stinking the place up.

Don't make the mistake of thinking English and co know what they are doing or where they are going, even under Key it was questionable that there was any actual game plan beyond the next greasy hustle but now its clear that the party is in for a rough ride come this election.

At the very best they get back in due to NZ First and then find themselves hostage to Winston playing out his dying fantasy of being PM (don't laugh it could happen) and at worst its back to where they were in the mid 2000s, down where Labour are now but marked as the party that let the housing hernia get out of control, who helped to pollute the rivers, who saw value in co-opting the Maori elite while the rest of Maori got nothing and who drove home the no-liberal welfare state with such force that the shock and dislocation that echo through NZ will reverberate for decades if not longer.

Voters might think about voting National because looking at Labour gives them a bad feeling and I get that but if your looking at National and feeling anything but dread for the next three years then you need your head read, better to vote for Gareth Morgan and TOP and start all over again. Political Year Zero*.

Its a party of crooks, thieves and lairs, with corruption and nepotism as the icing on the crud cake. Its a party of out and out predators previously lead by the greatest huckster NZ politics has ever known but is now fronted by a shell of what was once human behind which stand the ranks of swollen and bloated, suit (or ghastly pant suit) wearing zombies which ooze seditiously from all orifices.

In a sick way it makes sense that toxic water would be the issue to bring these freaks out of their bolt hole long enough to cough up some phlegmy lie about wanting to make the water better rather than act as unchaste handmaidens for toxic farming and manufacturing. Sadly it is a lie and we all know it.

If your believing that National will actually do this then ask yourself why its set so far out and why now?

As I predicted at the start of the year the environment is going to be an election issue but its going to take more than some half assed spin from a bunch of past their prime (if ever they were) politicians to get people off the scent as water issues are far and wide a Kiwi thing; going to the river or the beach is a quintessential summer activity (not to mention going fishing, or to the lake, or camping by the river etc etc) and when its not safe to swim, drink or wade in then you have an issue which exposes them for all their rotten souls are worth and cuts across political lines like few things can.

National party members or not (and I have met a few recently) water, rivers and lakes is something which is a unifying issue, like rugby used to be and the lie of clean and green is wearing dangerously thin.

No stats or fact twisting will save them, no bitter half truths or alternate facts, no picture of criminals fronting the scene of the crime saying "we didn't do it" is going to make a difference. Just the last three months of front pages articles in the Christchurch Press about toxic rivers and ECAN blunders (along with more quake related scandals like CERA staff in major corruption probes) is enough to show that this is not a Labour or Greens based issue.

Truth is, its been nine years and the National brand was co-opted around 2008 and English might be thinking that Keys mana will stick to him long enough to sweep back into parliament but its looking less and less so as the critical mass of negativity that Key was holding back by sheer force of his necrotic will (which is why he made it plain he had "nothing left in the tank") is starting to tumble inwards onto the horrid play fort called National (a structure which appears to be built out of old carpets smelling of cat urine and criminal intent) with predictable consequences and a cloud of repellent odor billowing outwards.

In short, National stinks, whenever they open their mouth they stink, whenever they say something about anything they stink, they look stinky, they act like piss stained winos hassling passers by in the street for loose change when they front up next to a river and say with a straight face (and no trace of irony - but when you have no soul it seems unlikely that you would get what ironic is) that they care about the environment.

They stink, they smell, and they are stinking up parliament (and the country), like some foul smelling stain on the carpet of origin unknown.

Most of National has convinced itself that their high polling is due to them and not the fumbling performance of Labour of the last decade, or that Key was not the magic Ace in the hole that protected them from the just fate about to befall them.

And this is why English and National are running silent and surfacing only for grotesque and embarrassing policy moments like this one about water, they are hoping that if they stay out of sight no-one will attribute the smell to them, better to let the others get blamed (the political version of "who smelt it, dealt it").

My father, while a hard man, was also a rather wise man as well. His take on politics was that politicians and political parties were like turds floating in the toilet bowl. No matter who or what they were sooner or later you had to flush.

National without Key look (and smell) increasingly like something far worse than fecal matter and more like the very thing they are pretending to eradicate from our rivers.

Come September its time to flush.

*-And yes I get that reference, Pol Pot the Khmer Rouge and the Killing Fields.