#TopTen | No. 10: McCully Dances

This year I wrote and posted 794 posts. (This is the 796th)

Of those, this from November the 3rd was the tenth most popular, which with this week’s shameful work at the UN gains an added relevance…

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McCully Dances

Murray McCully is a strategically astute forward-thinking Foreign Minister who always knows how to get things done. 

Actually, no, he’s not. As the Saudi sheep-to-sand deal has always suggested, he’s either incompetent or he’s corrupt. And as the just-released 18-months-in-the-preparation AG report into the deal has just concluded that he is definitely not corrupt (can’t be; the Attorney-General no less says so!), then that only leaves the other alternative. As one wag said yesterday, "’significant shortcomings’ is probably the best performance review Murray's had in ages."

Hearing him yesterday declare Saudi Arabia to be “the gateway for the African continent” only confirms that conclusion about his competence – also suggesting he invest in a better atlas.

McCully’s pandering to Hmood Al Ali Al Khalaf – from sending him millions of dollars, then flying over live sheep, to setting up some kind of “Agrihub” in the middle of the Arabian desert, to who knows what else? – all of this game-playing suggests less a competent minister than someone who has been well played by Mr Al Khalaf. It puts one in mind not so much of a crafty Metternich who “gets the job done” but a small-time Nigerian scammer made by a good scambaiter to be his dupe.

Something like this, with McCully being the retard with the skateboard:

 

 

[Cartoon by Emmerson]

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Tomorrow, the year’s ninth-most popular post and a question: Are you racist?

RELATED:

• “But what’s it got to do with Murray McCully and his now very public emails? Well, the little dwarf certainly has no talent, but he sure is a shifty little fuck.  Just shifty enough to make wonder whether anyone really stole them. Just the sort of devious attention-seeker who might think letting his own emails out into the wild might garner him some.”
  No, McCully wasn’t there – NOT PC, 2012
• “[In] 1967, when Israel faced off against neighbouring Arab states. In London, Paris, and other capitals people took to the streets to endorse Israel. Editorials in The Times of London, The Guardian, The Economist, and Time magazine aligned with Israel. So did notable intellectuals and academics; one group even took out an ad spelling out its rationale in the Washington Post.
      “What happened since then to bring about [the] sea change [in which the hosannas of endorsement have transformed into choruses of denunciation]? In [his book] Making David Into Goliath: How the World Turned Against Israel, scholar Joshua Muravchik presents a finely textured history that tells how international opinion turned so sharply against Israel.
      “The book’s account lays stress on two key developments, one political, the other intellectual.”
  The Moral High Ground, Usurped – Elan Journo, VOICES FOR REASON
• “The Israelis and the Palestinians are not morally equal: Israel is the only free country in a region dominated by Arab monarchies, theocracies and dictatorships. It is only the citizens of Israel — Arabs and Jews alike — who enjoy the right to express their views, to criticise their government, to form political parties, to publish private newspapers, to hold free elections. When Arab authorities deny the most basic freedoms to their own people, it is obscene for them to start claiming that Israel is violating the Palestinians’ rights. All Arab citizens who are genuinely concerned with human rights should, as their very first action, seek to oust their own despotic rulers and adopt the type of free society that characterises Israel.”
  Israel Has a Moral Right to Its Life – Yaron Brook & Peter Schwartz, VOICES FOR REASON

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McCully dances

 

Murray McCully is a forward-thinking Foreign Minister who always knows how to get things done. 

Actually, no, he’s not. As the Saudi sheep-to-sand deal has always suggested, he’s either incompetent or corrupt. And as the just-released 18-months-in-the-preparation AG report into the deal has just decided he is definitely not corrupt (can’t be; the AG says so!), that only leaves the other alternative.

Hearing him yesterday declare Saudi Arabia to be “the gateway for the African continent” confirms that conclusion – also suggesting he invest in a better atlas. (And as one wag said yesterday, "’significant shortcomings’ is probably the best performance review Murray's had in ages.")

McCully’s pandering to Hmood Al Ali Al Khalaf – from sending him millions of dollars, then flying over live sheep, to setting up some kind of “Agrihub” in the middle of the Arabian desert, to who knows what else? – it all suggests less a competent minister than someone who is being well played. It puts one in mind not so much of a crafty Metternich who “gets the job done” but a small-time Nigerian scammer made by a good scambaiter to be his dupe.

Something like this, with McCully being the retard with the skateboard:

 

 

[Cartoon by Emmerson]

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Cronyism in Niue and National

 

I may be mistaken, but I haven’t seen anyone so far ask the obvious question about the management contract allegedly gifted by the McCully-appointed Niue Tourism Property Trust to Earl Hagaman’s Scenic Hotel Group just after Hagaman had made a substantial donation to the National Party.

That very obvious question is this: why is the NZ Government (or a NZ-government appointed board) in any position to granting management contracts for hotels in Niue?  Indeed, why is the government in the position of granting management contracts anywhere, ever, at all.

Yes, yes, the obious answer is that the NZ Government has been putting money into Niue resorts in an effort to “boost tourism.” And since the hotel[s] in question are owned by the Government of Niue in order to “ensure oversight” the contracts are supposedly let at some minimal kind of arm’s length.

But still, to have the government’s contracts let by a group of government-appointed cronies simply invites either cronyism, or the whiff of it.

If it’s not corrupt, the process certainly invites it.

If it is corrupt, it should be receiving all the oxygen of the present publicity.

And given that every similar letting of government contracts invites the same kind of cronyistic corruption, to me it invites the even more obvious question of all: why should any government be in the position of letting contracts at all. The same whiff of cronyism arises with every so-called public-private partnership—just once reason there should be none.

Put simply, the government not be in the business of investing either in hotels – either here or in Niue – or in the tourism business, or in the job of letting contracts therein. That is properly the job of tourist operators themselves, who risk their own money not the taxpayers.

To paraphrase PJ O’Rourke: when the buying and selling of contracts is at the discretion of politicians, the first ones to be bought and sold are politicians.

And that means politicians of evry hue.

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Well, that’s a vote of confidence in Labour

For once, National’s Foreign Affairs Minister Murray McCully has acted as the underhanded strategist he’s reputed to be, ‘poaching’ Labour’s Shane Jones for a job as fisheries bureaucrat for the Pacific just ahead of the election.

That Jones finally accepted McCully’s January overtures is both a vote of no-confidence in his party’s chances this election – with the portfolio of Economic Development he could have expected a major role in any Labour-Green win – and also of its internal culture.  Because it seems his disgust with Labour’s “identity politics” might finally have trumped his political ambition.

And he has been ambitious. Since his first appearance in what is euphemistically called “public life” he’s been a chancer, leveraging his own Maori identity early on into a plum job as chairman of the Waitangi Fisheries Commission.

He’s been feeding from the trough ever since – so, no change at all in that respect then – with increasing arrogance at every move up the greasy pole.

At least he’ll now be able to download porn on a taxpayers’ tab without journalists writing headlines about it.

RELATED POSTS:

• Bastards TVNZ has met - 2006
• Shane Jones, MP, on Labour's democracy rationing proposals – 2007
• Shane Jones: Building the slums of tomorrow – 2008
• Movies. Massages. Golf clubs: "Using their ministerial credit cards like personal cheque accounts," bless ‘em. – 2010
• Constitutional Hooey - 2011

Key Derangement Syndrome

There are certainly things about which the media should be attacking John Key. (Me, I’ve been doing it for years.) But attacking him for attacking them? Well, I heard Key’s interview on Leighton Smith’s show—heard it at the time—and I heard no attack. No whining. No slamming of the media. None at all.  Just comments about how the media seemed to have ended their love-fest with him, and a few (accurate) remarks about how the Herald and Sunday Star Slime have gone tabloid.

So subsequent stories and press suggesting there was a tantrum looks like a clear case of Key Derangement Syndrome.

And it leaves me in the uncomfortable position of agreeing with Bill Ralston.*

Mind you, it’s not a bad thing that the media’s rose-tinted Smile and Wave glasses have receded if it means we’ll now see honest criticism of the man instead of the hagiography we’ve been served up over the last four years.

Because there is so much to criticise--and you do not need to make it up.

* * * *  *

* Mind you, Ralston is completely wrong in that same post in defending Murray McCully. Not just because he’s defending a turd like McCully (something that should revolt every human being).  But, well, what exactly would be wrong with Foreign Ministers having meetings on Skype? Eh?

No, McCully wasn’t there

There’s been an email thread going around the advertising industry in recent weeks, started when an email from the head one big agency calling his competitors “bastards”—bastards moreover who were going to “steal his staff”—was inadvertently sent to that very bastard.

The email started as an informal internal memo telling colleagues to get down to a certain Auckland careers show before those other bastards stole the hot talent they’d just been talking about. Naturally, the abuse and the error were enough to send the email string viral, with much mirth all round at the schadenfreude involved.

And, this being the advertising industry, it was only natural that the whole thing was a complete set-up. A set-up set up by the very talent hoping to be picked up at the careers show, in collusion with the the heads of those big two advertising agencies who were sponsoring the event.

Now you’ve got to admit, that shows real talent.

But what’s it got to do with Murray McCully and his now very public emails?

Well, the little dwarf certainly has no talent, but he sure is a shifty little fuck.  Just shifty enough to make wonder whether anyone really stole them. Just the sort of devious attention-seeker who might think letting his own emails out into the wild might garner him some; with just the sort of machiavellian mind that might think numerous emails about overpaid and overfed diplomats might be a good release about the time you’re about to cut the fat out of MFAT.

After all, his (now former) opposite number in Canberra has said much worse than anything in the fairly tame emails released thus far. The rat fucker.

And the local journalists who swallowed whole the story of them being hacked, making the emails and not the cutting of diplomatic FAT the story, are no less gullible than local ad men.  Are they.

DOWN TO THE DOCTOR’S: Exiting the Parliamentary Trough

Your weekly prescription of headline dissection from Libertarianz leader Dr Richard McGrath.

This week, Exiting the Parliamentary Trough

Parliament has finally risen. And if Mark Twain is correct, that should mean our lives, liberties and personal property should be safe again for a month or two.

Fat chance.

Nonetheless, the end of this parliamentary term has seen several MPs disengage themselves themselves from the trough from which they have gorged themselves these past three years. Some have been feeding from it for two-score years or more. Others have stayed just long enough to qualify for the parliamentary pension. I can't remember what the rules around that are now—perhaps the perks are not quite as gold-plated as they used to be, although subsidised air travel appears to remain on the list.

One of the troughers finally extricating himself after years on the State tit is Rodney Hide, the perk-buster come perk-luster who shouted his girlfriend an overseas trip paid for by the sweat of others ("But I was entitled!" he squealed, paying up only once he was found out). Another is Roger Douglas, who by my reckoning has chalked up twenty-seven years warming a seat in the debating chamber; he made himself famous in his first terms as a Labour Finance Minister prepared to challenge and then rescue the country from the totalitarian tendencies of Robert Muldoon; he  made himself famous in this one by being prepared to have the taxpayer pay for his books and his  trips to his granddaughter's wedding in the UK. ("But I was entitled!" he squealed, refusing to pay up at all.)

Other parasites—cockroaches like Trevor Mallard and Murray McCully spring immediately to mind—hang on like the leeches they inevitably become, addicted to the OPiuM of the masses (Other People's Money) and the power plays of the Parliamentary precinct.

Those of us who have to pick up the tab for the circus that is Parliament, for the time-wasting, filibustering attempts to justify a salary that is several times the minimum wage, and the TV channel that broadcasts the heavily censored antics of these goons into our living room (the cameras are not allowed to capture MPs sleeping, reading newspapers or picking their noses, and newspapers may not—on penalty of being banned—republish photos of any action that might occasionally happen in the chamber) often become somewhat irritated by the overinflated sense of importance that MPs exhibit and their insatiable lust for unearned reward. Unearned, because none of them produce a damned thing. They can only either inhibit or destroy.

The best thing they could do would be to get out of the way. Let people work hard, and desist from stealing the fruit of their labour. Go on indefinite gardening leave, for example, as PC has suggested most 'public servants' do. But no, they insist on making more and more laws to regulate and micromanage our lives, as if that somehow justifies their bloated salaries.

Until they see the light and start pulling their heads in voluntarily (fat chance), I propose a radical reform of the system of remuneration and the trappings associated with being an MP. This would involve pulling ALL current MPs off Nanny's nipple and sending them back from boarding school to their parents with a note from Matron. That note would essentially say that the golden days of living off the taxpayer forever are over, From now on, MPs would have to be funded by their own political parties.

Yes, let the National Party set John Key's salary, and that of his Labour-Lite colleagues. And let the members of the National Party raise the funds to pay that salary. Likewise let the Labour Party pay its own MPs—that should be a relatively cheap exercise for the next 3 years at least.

Radical? Hell, yes. It would probably mean National seeking funding from corporate sources and Labour competing with other left-wing parties for union funds. But it would mean political parties were actually bankrolled by the people that support them instead of holding a gun to heads of productive people and forcing them to cough up their hard-earned pennies to pay delinquent parasites whose principles and policies are often diametrically opposed to their own personal beliefs.

Speaking for myself and my own pocketbook, I personally resent having to pay a Prime Minister who is a liar and his sidekick the Dipton Double-dipper—happy, both of them, to consign our children to a burden of crushing debt, the inevitable consequence of which which will be default and further credit downgrade.

Make all political parties responsible for paying their MPs whatever they want, and arranging their pensions and perks. You can bet there wouldn't be the same golden shower of pay and perks these jobsworths enjoy at the moment at our expense.

Hell, some of them might be forced to find productive work! 

And yes, fat chance of that as well.

See you next week!
Doc McGrath

DOWN TO THE DOCTOR’S: It is, quite literally, a National-isation

Your weekly prescription of good hard sense from Libertarianz leader Dr Richard McGrath.
This week, how to stop MPs and immigrants from gouging NZ taxpayers.

• NZ HERALD: “Waterfront move an 'overreaction'” – Auckland Council transport chair Mike Lee says Murray McCully’s move to nationalise Party Central is an over-reaction…

THE DOCTOR SAYS: For the first time I can remember, I find myself agreeing with Mike Lee. This National-led Government, voted in on the pretext of rolling back Clarkism, has turned instead into Blue Nanny, seizing control of the Auckland waterfront in a crude and blatant power-grab.
    It is, quite literally, a National-isation of Auckland’s crown jewels.
    And for what? To “create more space for partying.” So that more JAFAs can get pissed. Is that really a legitimate government activity? Should local or central government have even become involved in staging a pissup? Or a rugby tournament?  (Answers on a postcard, please.)  Because this, right here, is the logical outcome of having pollies plan your sporting contests.
    Politicians like Murray McCu**y and his National Socialist cohorts see a situation that has been screwed up by a simpleton (who Aucklanders must now be embarrassed at voting into the mayoralty). McCu**y seizes his opportunity, and with it Auckland’s transport, Auckland’s wharves and Auckland’s downtown, showering over the newly National-ised piss-up infrastructure yet another golden shower of taxpayer money.
    His plan? That one week after a ginormous 200,000-strong party, few, if any, punters will be willing to try repeating the experience anyway.  Ergo, pictures on Monday morning of Wellington’s shortest cabinet minister crowing over his “success” in quelling Auckland’s crowds.
    So what would a Libertarianz Party MP have suggested doing instead? Easy: have the politicians stay the hell out of the Rugby World Cup altogether; don’t give the IRB the power to shut down local businesses; leave the Rugby Union and Martin Snedden to organise their own tournament using their own money; Let the IRB subsidise them if needed. Leave private enterprise to organise the after-match piss-ups however and wherever they wanted. Why? Because how a person or group of people amuse themselves (provided they don’t hurt anyone who doesn’t want to be hurt) is none of John Key’s damned business.
    It may come as a surprise to McCu**y and even to many New Zealanders, but one of the core functions of government is not facilitating the kicking around of a pointy ball and the drinking of piss.
    However, my final prescription is this: forget the parasitic politicians for the next month or so and just enjoy this veritable feast of rugby. I know I will be trying to.

See you next week!
Doc McGrath

Hiding Haden’s comments doesn’t change the truth [updated]

So I’m curious now. What was it that Andy Haden actually said?

I'm of the mind that if women head out on the town with the purpose of being shagged by a sportsman, then they must bear some responsibility for their actions.
    Treating all women as victims infantilises them. If women want sexual freedom, they must accept sexual responsibility.
    Alcoholic comas, unwanted sex and remorse are occupational hazards for trollops on the prowl.”

Oops.  No, that was Kerre Woodham.

There are people who are really just there for a screw. They are the team bike. And that's really distasteful to me ... The players are just going to laugh at them the next day. They find them a nuisance. I think those people are in it not because they enjoy the game, but because they want to have sex with a football player."

Oops, no that wasn’t him either. That was a 22-year-old who “confesses to being a former football groupie but believes she has now moved into the inner sanctum of a Sydney-based club. ‘It's not about me wanting to sleep with them and kiss them any more, it's about me enjoying their company,’ says Jane (not her real name).” So what did Haden say that was so out of turn? Here it is—no fooling this time:

There's a bloke called Hugh Grant. He got into a bit of trouble like this and I think if the cheque bounces sometimes, they only realise that they've been raped, you know, sometimes," he said. Haden said there were two sides to every story. ‘It's an equal society now, some of these girls are targeting rugby players and they do so at their peril today, I think.’"

So, um, anyone care to tell me which part of that is incorrect? Anyone? So if it’s not wrong, then what was so wrong in saying it?  Nothing, says Lindsay Perigo, who reckons Haden is one of the few honest and courageous men in NZ public life:

Andy Haden's resignation as Ambassador for the Government's Rugby World Cup programme marks him out yet again as one of the very, very small number of people in New Zealand public life with integrity and courage…
     Mr. Haden is a hero. Lesser men—most men in New Zealand—would have gone on television, wept, apologised, begged forgiveness from all the people he supposedly had let down—and pleaded to be given another chance. Mr. Haden instead removed himself with great dignity from a situation where he would continue to be harassed by quacking dimwits masquerading as television reporters for the sin of speaking his mind, and reprimanded by moral pygmies like Murray McCully for the same reason.
     ”It is to be hoped Sky TV will not now lose its nerve as it did over the Murray Mexted affair, and will keep Andy Haden on as a fearless and robust commentator in a nation sadly lacking in fearless commentary in all fields.”

Not much to disagree with there, is there.  So does sacking him change the truth?  Or simply diminish debate.

UPDATE: 

Make Paul The Octopus Rugby Ambassador, says Libz leader Dr Richard McGrath   
    Libertarianz leader Richard McGrath today nominated the German octopus known as Paul as replacement for ex-All Black Andy Haden, whose utterances could not be kept under tight government control.
    "Paul is the sort of useful idiot Lenin would have loved," said Dr McGrath. "A spineless creature of subhuman intelligence who can only choose between options selected for him by his masters. Ideal fodder for the political ends of John Key and Murray McCully."
    "Andy Haden could not be relied on to stick to the script laid out for him by the National government who, as their name suggests, have nationalised the Rugby World Cup and would not hesitate to nationalise the rowing team ahead of the upcoming world championships. Their Labour predecessors were no better, forcing tax victims into funding local millionaires to compete in America's Cup yachting."
    "Unfortunately, John and Murray weren't prepared for the prospect of one of their appointees having a mind of his own and not being afraid to speak it," added Dr McGrath. "The 'psychic' octopus would be a much better choice, incapable of saying anything remotely controversial."
    "They could put his aquarium in one of those ugly sheds on the Auckland waterfront. Heaven knows no person in their right mind would want to party inside one of those architectural eyesores."  

“Two sheds” that expose the puerility of political power

You’ve probably read abut the circus-and-a-half now going on down at Queens Wharf, the on-again off-again with-sheds or without location and locus of the politicians’ Party Central and Rugby World Cup “fanzone.” The circus is probably best summarised by David Slack:

“Mr Key, Mr McCully. Embarrassing you couldn't organise one on wharf. Might still look OK if you can manage one in brewery.”

You have to laugh.

But think about this for a moment. Every three years you and your friends troop into the polling booth, and vote to give more power to politicians to plan your life. Maybe every time you do you should think about the circus politicians make about a simple piss-up. If the political process can’t plan that, why would you want it planning your life?

But maybe you think agree they can’t (and shouldn’t) plan your life, and shouldn’t be allowed to try—but you still think they’re the best ones to plan where so much of the country’s money is spent.

Well, quite apart from the morality of that notion (whose money?), hasn’t the revelations of their credit card spending rather exploded that notion for you as well?

So perhaps every time you find yourself thinking to yourself, “we” need to do this and “we” need to do that, just think instead of those two sheds on that windswept wharf and the stuff up they’ve already made trying to organise one down there … and think again.

Queens wharf stage one winners: it’s not the public [updated]

The five first stage winners of the two-week Queen’s Wharf design competition are announced this morning – my own entry wasn’t amongst them, and neither were any that I’d picked in my summary here a few weeks back – and nor were any that are likely to set the world alight. If there’s a winner here, it’s not going be the public.

Just to remind you, the competition was intended to select a design for a new cruise terminal and a “Party Central” for the Rugby World Cup an beyond.

The designs selected to go forward to Stage 2 of the competition are as follows (click on the links to view a PDF):
Design number 024 - Andrius Gedgaudas, Architect, Shanghai China.
Design number 046 - Den Aitken, Pete Griffins and Hamish Foote, Field Landscape Architecture, Auckland.
Design number 170 - David Gibbs and Aaron Sills, Construkt / SVB, Auckland.
Design number 195 - John Coop, Tasman Studio, Auckland.
Design number 216 - Simon Williams, Williams Architects Ltd, Auckland.

(These five designs were selected by, wait for it, Murray McCully and Gerry Brownlee, ARC Chairman Mike Lee and Auckland City Mayor John Banks, “assisted by” the chief executives of the Ministry of Economic Development, Auckland Regional Council and Auckland City Council, and – as professional advisers – Prof. John Hunt, Ian Athfield, Rebecca Skidmore, Jillian de Beer and Graeme McIndoe.)

In total they represent a collection of sheds and seats and shipping containers – in a prime spot at one of the world’s best harbours – that (with the exception of #216 which at least has an overbridge to get them there) are somehow supposed to attract pedestrians from Queen St through a bus plaza, across two busy streets and out to their barren windswept plazas. Sheesh.

Which all rather reminds me of a quote I stumbled across today that you can consider as you view these schemes:

“A bold architectural statement turns a public building into a landmark, but it is in the details where the architect becomes the real storyteller.”
- Curtis W. Fentress

Have any of these here got either of those qualities right?

UPDATE: More blather on this here at the Herald, who repeat the claims of the council’s press release that

    “All five were chosen for their ability to strike the right balance between meeting the need for a great public space, act as a major celebration during the Cup and provide a world-class cruise ship terminal.
    “Other ideas include using the historic pattern of the wharf, major open space across the width of the northern end, a harbour pool within the perimeter of the wharf and simple sculptural forms for the cruise ship terminal.”

Drinks cabinet

Danyl at the Dim Post cops a load of the new National cabinet. It's incisive analysis like this that puts Danyl at the top of the press gallery pole (or should do):

Bill English
Background: Policy analyst.
Portfolios: Finance and Infrastructure
Analysis: Rumoured to have tricked Key into thinking he is actually the National leader's butler, causing Key to let his guard down around his ambitious deputy.
Murray McCully
Background: Lawyer.
Portfolios: Foreign Affairs. Sport. Rugby World Cup.
Analysis: Was probably just a big coincidence that McCully’s time as National election strategist saw his party spend nine years in opposition; I’m sure he’ll be a great diplomatic envoy.

A plea from a political 'journalist'

The Listener's political journalist Jane Clifton this week bewails the competition coming her way from bloggers, and from politician-bloggers.

And the poor dear -- who can frequently be found in her reports trying unsuccessfully to sort truth from spin (a job made more difficult by marriage to the odious Murray McCully, one would have thought) -- has good reason to worry.  Her political columns usually eschew analysis for gossip, and issues for sport; Clifton epitomises the journalist who ignores the effect of politics on those over whom the politicians seek power, and instead simply reports the 'game.'

Well, many of us have become heartily sick of our political reporting being served up in such a fashion by such insightless unworthies, and are eager for something she and most of her ilk are clearly unable to provide: intelligent analysis.  While bloggers don't always provide that, it's only early days, and it's clear enough from her bleating that the heat of competition is already holding a few feet to the fire.

If the likes of Clifton find their job and the way they're accustomed to do it made more difficult by the brighter light shone on their subject by bloggers than they can manage, then I'm all for it.

UPDATE:  Clifton's column appears to have been released to the internet inadvertently, and has now been withdrawn.  If you wish, however, you can read most of the cached version here.

Making nanny state bigger one dead rat at a time

When one points out to would-be National voters all the dead rats John Key is making them swallow, they suck it up, wipe off their chin, and talk with glazed-over enthusiasm about the new age that Flip Flop Boy is going to usher in once the present dishonest corrupt government is replaced with another one of different hue, but similar policy outlook.

The dead rats are worth it, say the strategists. If we don't frighten the horses, then we'll come stampeding home come November. The dead rats are worth it, agree the poll respondents -- just as long as the dishonest corrupt government is our dishonest corrupt government.

As a strategy it's barmy, and just crying out to be sucker punched.

You see, it's not just the dead rats of the past that you and John Boy are going to swallow -- and here I'm talking to those of you dopey enough to swallow this 'appeasement as election strategy' strategy -- you need to think about all the dead rats to come.

Yes, you've sucked up all the dead rats served up so far when you thought you had to, and you've even swallowed on occasions. You've said to yourself, "I can accept this," while holding your nose and swallowing ... but smart Labour Labour strategists will already be drawing up lists to try and see if you'll also swallow this, once John Boy plants his 'me too' kiss upon it.

If you were a smart Labour strategist (and in this context 'smart' only means 'smarter than Murray McCully, so we're not talking rocket scientists here), you wouldn't be complaining that Key's "innoculation" of National's "scarier" policy positions makes it hard to paint them in the privatising, Roundtable-hugging way you'd like to be able to, instead you'd be observing the me-tooing with glee, and looking for a chance to use it.

How? By making nanny state bigger one dead rat at a time.

The smart Labour strategist would already be drawing up a list of election bribes so rat-like in their cunning, so obviously socialist in their aim, that John Boy and his supporters will be left with splinters on both cheeks as they try to perch on both sides of an irreconcilable fence in response.

Labour can't lose here, if they do it right: if John Boy and the Flip Flop Team do keep signing up to the dead rats -- and the latest student election bribe may be just a trial balloon in this respect -- then the election agenda for the next three months and the policy agenda for the next three years will both be set by Labour strategists, with all the growth in nanny government that will ensue, and all the election bribes that implies -- and all the drop in support for the Flip Flop Boys that can be predicted as even the blindest blue-tinged supporter realises that the effect of his party's strategy is that his party's leaders are in reality batting for the other team.

Socialism to the left of me, socialism from the right -- how could a Laborite really lose?

The job of the smart Labour strategist will be to find that 'equilibrium' point at which the dead rats being swallowed by the Blue Team start to choke their blue-tinged support, and then just go a little bit more. 'More,' in this case, meaning more bribes, more nannying, more socialism.

The job of the smart National strategist -- if such a person actually exists in their 'zero from three' strategy team -- should be to realise this now, several weeks before the election, while there's still time to promote a vision in which National actually represents a significant policy alternative.

And the smart National voter? That's another oxymoron. If more bribes, more nannying and more socialism is what you want, then keep right on supporting the Blue Team's 'me too' strategy. As long as you do, they'll keep right on offering it, as indigestible as that will eventually prove to be.

UPDATE:  Another dead rat has just washed up on the electoral beach: Liberty Scott reports "Labour has now pledged over $400 million of your taxes (not petrol tax but general tax) to pay for the frightfully expensive Transmission Gully motorway. This doesn't even cover half the cost."

And John Boy's response?  "Me too."

Did Crosby text him?

What a kerfuffle over nothing.  So the National Party has hired (or not) a crowd of Australian spin doctors called Crosby Textor to write their lines for them (or not).  And the importance of this is ....  no, it completely escapes me.  Every party lies -- does it matter who writes their lines?

"The SIS were bugging me!"  Tariana Turia came up with that gem all on her own -- with a bit of help from congenital liars Gordon Campbell and Hicky Hager -- and the "holocaust" in Taranaki she invented was also all her own work.  No need for expensive spin doctors for the Maori Party; the in-house skills seem fine.

"Cash for policies!"  "American bagmen!" "The pledge card is not electioneering!"  "Fact is, the Labour Party doesn't have enough money to hire it's liars -- -- unless of course you count Heather Simpson, who is paid by the taxpayer -- and their own in-house liars are clearly good enough at producing their own lies and misdirection to keep the media busy. Just look what a frenzy in a fruit bowl they've created over two Aussie spin doctors.

"We're all going to die!"  "Save the snails!" "We support free speech!" Frankly, if it's pathetic self-serving lies you object to, then the dangerous lies and anti-industrial nonsense peddled by the Greens must surely take the biscuit.  Do their lies, or Hager's own lies, outstrip the lies supposedly paid for by the Tories?

Every party lies.  Every party spins.  Some of them just have to hire others to write those lines for them.  The story is not who writes the lies -- it should be the lies themselves.

UPDATE:  And frankly, as arch-Machieavellians, the Australian spin twins Crosby Textor look about as useful as, well, Murray '0 from 3' McCully.  As Colin Espiner observes,

for all its fearsome reputation, Crosby Textor’s results are mixed at best. It has advised National in its last four campaigns. National has lost three in a row. It advised John Howard last year. Howard lost. It advised Michael Howard in Britain. Howard lost. Its sole recent success was Boris Johnson in the London mayorlty, and Red Ken was history after introducing the congestion charge.

Stop attacking John Boy!

John Key is right when he says that Labour luminaries shouldn't be spending all their time attacking him, and Michael Cullen is wrong to mock him for crying Uncle.   I agree with John Boy.  Labour should be spending at least some of their time this year attacking Key's invertebrate front bench colleagues as well.

Those of us who can remember the Nats when they were in power might testify they came up three feet short of a yard then, and the talent pool has expanded little since.

This, it must be remembered, is a caucus in which Murray McCully is still revered as a strategist (despite his strategies having now lost them three elections in a row) -- a caucus which continues to attack the Government over the NCEA and RMA, blithely unaware it would seem that it was they themselves  who introduced these malodorous pieces of law, and they have no plans at all to remove them. 

A caucus in which Simon Power (a man presently obsessed with prisoners hitting small balls into tin cans) is considered promising; in which Jackie Dean (the woman who expressed an interest in banning water) is rated as a high flyer; and in which Paul Hutchison (known for little outside his apparent interest in banning absinthe) is considered good ministerial material.  As I say, the talent was always thin on the ground, and has expanded little since.  For lack of any decent challengers, most of the old guard still retain their spots.

One of the old guard has done his own small bit for expansion. Gerry Brownlee is a lightweight in every respect but the obvious.  Only in a caucus with the paucity of talent of this one would such a buffoon have attained the position of deputy, only to lose it in the last coup to an even bigger waste of space, Bill English -- who will forever be remembered as Mr Twenty-One Percent. 

English was a dithering boob as party leader (who could forget his ill-fated 'live-on-TV' boxing debut, or that regrettable televised 'haka' down at the Viaduct), a non-entity in search of a conviction who richly deserved to lead his party to their worst ever electoral defeat.  No National Party leader before or since has deserved to be so soundly defeated.  His recent performances, which includes going to court to clarify MP's exemptions under the Electoral Finance Act,  suggest that Michael Cullen still knows how to work him by remote control. 

Just as three-time loser Murray McCully is regarded as a strategist by this caucus, so too is Nick Smith regarded as a visionary.  It would be a joke if it weren't more serious.  The man is a simpering idiot in search of a dripping wet village -- yet if National get over the line this year it will be this red-faced spineless creep, as Environment Minister, who would have the crucial task of rewriting the iniquitous Resource Management Act he once happily administered as minister in the Shipley Cabinet. (Remember Shipley!  Uuugh!)

It is enough to remember that when Nick was previously minister for the environment he could be heard describing the Resource Management Act as "far-sighted environmental legislation" -- that he was happy and "very proud" to introduce the Hauraki Gulf Marine Park Act (somewhat like the RMA on acid) which went on to achieve fame by all but scuppered development in Whitianga and Whangamata and  surrounding towns.  That it was he who first introduced forced retraining for early childhood professionals.   As Lindsay Perigo describes him he is "a man with a fork in his tongue big enough to hug a tree with." Expect to see no change however "substantive" to the RMA from Nick the Dick, and his spot in the rankings retained.

And then there's that other brat, Tony Ryall.  Remember Ryall promising to end the presumption of innocence for crimes of his choice when he was Justice Minister back in 1998? Remember Vile Ryall defending the revenue-collecting of his speed-camera wielding police officers, and instructing them to continue the collections while burglars and muggers got away scot free.  Some of us still retain our memories of past events, even if as health spokesman Ryall himself can't remember who it was who introduced the health reforms that he keeps criticising for expanding the health bureaucracy.  (Hint, Tony, it was your team.)

Then we have their housing spokesman (Phil Heatley)who apparently has no idea what his opposite number is up to; the former education minister who has still forgotten that it was he who set up the bloated bovine bureaucracies that are the NZQA and NCEA (yes Lockwood, we're looking at you); the former transport minister (Maurice Wimpianson)who happily took away our lifetime driving licenses so he could try and slip an ID card past us; the welfare spokeswoman (Judith Collins) who gets a full time salary for doing far less than the part-time blogger who seems to supply her with her best lines; and the woman from Dunedin who'd prefer to spend more time with he own children than these mentally challenged numb nuts.  At least Katherine Rich's young kids have a decent excuse for having a mental age less than their shoe size.

So these are just some of the targets that are missed when Labour shoot only in John Boy's direction.  What a shame not to shoot some of these other fish as they scrape their way around the bottom of the barrel.

Head east, young Don.

Where to now for Don Brash? 'Get thee to East Coast Bays' is the message from Liberty Scott, posed as an idea for Rodney Hide:

Invite Don Brash to join ACT, to stand in 2008 as East Coast Bays candidate against McCully, and to be finance spokesman and deputy leader. It will be your best ever chance to revitalise ACT, now that the Nats are on the slow train to their comfort zone of platitudes and status quo politics.

There's more than one way for The Don to make finance minister, and more than one way to cannibalise the Nats.

RELATED: Politics-NZ, Politics-National, Politics-ACT

Advice that should have been followed

The best piece of advice Brash received in his time as leader was to sack his advisers. Pity he didn't. It wasn't his own straight talking that did for him, it was the dissembling foisted upon him by the moronic likes of McCully and Co.

And the best piece of advice he could have got, and should have followed? When asked about the Brethren, he should have replied the same way Ronald Reagan did when asked about fruitcakes campaigning on his behalf:

"When people join my campaign," said Reagan, "they are supporting me; I am not necessarily supporting them."

To imply otherwise is outrageous collectivism. And to lie about such an innocuous association is just stupid, and -- like all lies -- in the end fatal.

RELATED: Politics-NZ, Politics-National

Stadium decision-making is management by blundering around

G-Man notes that the high-handed and secretive decision-making over the Rugby stadium for the 2011 World Cup is "further proof thathe only difference between the bigspending socialists in Labour and the bigspending socialists in National is purely in the semantics and the rhetoric."

No consultation (except between politicians).

No information given to the peasants on what's going on.

Requests for information airily dismissed

Little (if any) expert advice taken.

A billion-dollar bedpan for a stadium?

Ever felt like a mushroom? Fed bullshit and kept in the dark? Welcome to decision-making by government without the people, paid for by the people, over the people. As G-Man summarises, the only apparent problem either Clark, McCully or Mallard have is whether or not they can spend our money in time.

LINKS: Nats v Lab - G-Man
A billion-dollar bedpan - Not PC

RELATED: Auckland, Sport, Politics-NZ

No 'me-tooism' from The Don

Good stuff from Don Brash at the National Party conference over the weekend:

There are always those who believe the only way we can win the Treasury benches is by trying to 'out-Labour Labour.' If Labour wins office by taking $25,000 in tax off a successful hardworking Kiwi and bribing five voters with $5,000 each, perhaps National has to 'up' the stakes, and take $30,000 in tax off a successful hardworking Kiwi and bribe five voters with $6,000 each ­ or six voters with $5,000 each?

But that way surely lies disaster. Not only do we erode the spirit of personal responsibility and self-reliance on which this great country was built, but ultimately those who are more and more heavily taxed to finance the political bribes decide they've paid enough, and either arrange their affairs so they can substantially avoid tax or leave for places where they can pay much less tax. And of course plenty of affluent New Zealanders have done exactly that.

That means, I hope, no more 'mee-tooism' from The Don. I trust Nick Smith and Murray McCully were listening.

LINKS: Leader's speech to annual conference - Kiwiblog

MORE ON THIS SUBJECT: Politics-National, Politics-NZ