John Armstrong on “The Phone”
April 30th, 2008 at 8:11 am by David FarrarThe Dominion Post a week or so ago suggested the voters were no longer listening to Labour and had taken the phone off the hook. John Armstrong goes a step further:
The electorate’s mood gives every appearance of having solidified. Not only have voters taken the phone off the hook, in Labour’s case, they have buried it deep in the bottom drawer.
And even better:
NZ First’s waving of the flag of economic nationalism combined with an injudicious bit of Asian-bashing has done nothing to lift its stocks.
Winston Peters’ party is registering at a paltry 1.5 per cent.
Winston will accuse an Iraqi refugee who used to work for Saddam Hussein of stealing his phone probably!
Adding to the agony, National’s leader is at his highest rating as preferred Prime Minister despite Labour’s campaign to denigrate and discredit him as “Slippery John”.
The gender breakdown shows Key is drawing female voters away from Clark.
Diddums.
Tags: Helen Clark, John Armstrong, John Key, Labour, Polls, Winston First
April 30th, 2008 at 8:19 am
It still amazes me 35% of the population would still vote for them!…..Who are these people?
Vote:April 30th, 2008 at 8:26 am
Why does he write it as “Labour’s agony”, it is National’s delight surely. And the phone might be off the hook to Labour but it is being answered to National. So his whole article is presented as terrible for Labour and what a shame that is. I see the news as wonderful for National and I hope it continues for a very very long time.
Vote:April 30th, 2008 at 8:28 am
“…Who are these people?”
Adolescents or adults with a severe case of delayed adolescence. It’s the reason Bradford wanted the vote to be given to 16 year olds.
Vote:April 30th, 2008 at 8:53 am
One poll could be dismissed, but five in the space of two weeks, all giving the same message? But is Labour listening, or do they even care any more?
http://keepingstock.blogspot.com/2008/04/five-polls-cant-be-wrong.html
Vote:April 30th, 2008 at 9:00 am
I think Helen’s diddums remark is going to come back to haunt her quite often. I’m going to enjoy watching her face as it is directed back at her.
Vote:April 30th, 2008 at 9:08 am
Of course these polls are invalid as they only survey people with landlines.
If that is the best that the Labour spin team can come up with, I’m happy.
Vote:April 30th, 2008 at 9:15 am
“The gender breakdown shows Key is drawing female voters away from Clark”
Thank god for that, perhaps they have worked out what and who Clark really is.
Vote:April 30th, 2008 at 9:25 am
Poll fatigue ! Labour Party fatigue ! New Zealand knows there will be a change of government.
Vote:National must before the election make people want to vote for them. Adopting a government which encourages enterprise, free thinking and self responsibility. Not a closed mind back to the “good old days” that some of the current National MP’s might want. Not just the LTD’s the expectant cabinet ministers might yearn for.
There must be a balance between left right and centre.
Yes, I agree there must be influences from the right, especially the rewarding of effort and enterprise by lowering personal and corporate tax rates.
Much as I sympathise with those caught in the poverty trap in New Zealand, the only way out for this group is by education and evolution from the welfare sector to the productive sector.
That poses the biggest challenge to the new government – lifting people from dependency to independence. Not a popular move but a necessary one.
April 30th, 2008 at 9:28 am
yea key starting to attract female voters is huge!
it may finally be sinking in – the fuhrer actually isnt that good for families!
[DPF: Please do not use that term or you'll get demerits]
Vote:April 30th, 2008 at 9:48 am
Poor Little Man, Miachael Cullen will have to pull some pretty chunky rabbits out of his hat if he is going to get Labour back on track to securing the magical numbers it needs to return Helen back to her throne. Actully they will have to be cooked, with an affordable side-order of healthy veg and a nice dairy-cheese sauce, steaming hot, with a low price tag on them and a complimentary slice of whatever you want from the dessert tray.
And this from the economic Beadle who displayed such moralistic feigned outrage when the taxpayer once had the temerity to ask; “Please Sir, I want more…”
Now, I have always held the theory that this election will be won or lost on the female vote, so it was with some interest that read John Hamstrung’s statement:
“So it will be particularly galling for Labour that the Herald poll shows John Key making significant gains among one segment of the electorate where Helen Clark has traditionally dominated – female voters.
Adding to the agony, National’s leader is at his highest rating as preferred Prime Minister despite Labour’s campaign to denigrate and discredit him as “Slippery John”.
The gender breakdown shows Key is drawing female voters away from Clark.”
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/1/story.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10507012
Hamstrung of course has rarely let a blatent misrepresentation get in the way of his otherwise sound judgment so here is today’s howler:
“The [Labour] party’s frustration is that this has happened after a sustained period when the Labour-led minority Government had been functioning more effectively than it has for quite some time, give or take the odd distraction.”
(you mean the Labour President caught lying about a suggested rort of the election, the atrocious conference sing-song, the derailed airport sale, and the subsequent sale of electricity ‘infrastructure’ in Wellington, fuel, mortgage, food price hikes and .. have I missed any other ‘distractions’?)
But anyway….
This really must be troubling for Labour – because Clark has always had the ability to dog-whistle latent fears about the opposition, to the female voter, and appeal to them ‘as a woman’. But I really fear she kicked the stool out from under that when she took on Winston as Foreign Minister, but more realistically, has lost their trust as they, ‘as women’ struggle with bills, mortgages, fuel, food increases, and in some parts of the country, job losses. To see Helen on television still going on along the lines of ‘Thank goodness for Working for Families…’ just smacks of a PM who is clearly out of touch with their everyday realities. It was ok when they were given a properly administrated ‘dividend’, after years of frugality, but Working for Families was meant to be the cherry on top of the economic pie, not the seasoning on an otherwise spartan staple diet.
An irony here is that the plan has gone so terribly wrong. The plan for Labour was, spike the opposition with the EFA, access tonnes ($8.5 Million) of cash for multi-media covert campaigning and rely on the bedrock female support by fanning their neuroses and keeping a fire lit under ‘social concerns’ like wife-beating, kiddy-bashing and the evils of drink. Throw in a lot of kiwisaver advertising, give money to socially-aware groups so they could lobby for you, and voila! Helen and Mikey boy would be able to ridicule and denigrate ‘Sippery Key’ all the way to the bank.
But politics is like a giddy, all-engrossing ,relationship, isn’t it?
When it’s going right your partners can’t put a foot wrong. But when it’s going wrong, they can’t put a foot right…….
Lee – http://monkeyswithtypewriter.blogspot.com/
Vote:April 30th, 2008 at 9:49 am
Poor Little Man,
Vote:April 30th, 2008 at 10:02 am
I shall attempt to condense Lee C’s post for him. In short, people have had enough of the thieving, lying, dictatorial, vile, scum sucking sacks of shit that go under the name of the Liarbore party.
Vote:April 30th, 2008 at 10:07 am
Tim Barclay – Armstrong writes about `Labours Agony’ rather than `Nationals Delight’ because bad news sells newspapers not good news.
Vote:April 30th, 2008 at 10:23 am
thank you sideshow – I needed that!
Vote:April 30th, 2008 at 10:33 am
dime (195) +1 Says:
April 30th, 2008 at 9:28 am
yea key starting to attract female voters is huge!
it may finally be sinking in – the fuhrer actually isnt that good for families!
[DPF: Please do not use that term or you'll get demerits]
really? why? ive been using it for years?
dime doesnt mind a bit of discipline haha
Vote:April 30th, 2008 at 10:50 am
Come on DPF dont get too precious about the use of terms the electorate are turinng on these dog turds on the sole of my shoes and given their behaviour towards the citizens for 9 years they dont deserve any sympathy or protection from the citizens wrath
We the faithfull have had to endure this scourge and now we are looking at freedom from their yoke of oppression.
Let us rejoice and caste the Socialists into the wilderness where they belong to wonder lost and afraid.
slightlyrighty
DPF may have some comment but I would have thought landline polling would favour the Socialists rather then the Nats.
Vote:April 30th, 2008 at 11:18 am
“It still amazes me 35% of the population would still vote for them!…..Who are these people?”
NZ has about 1.5 million full time workers, but there are about 1 million beneficiaries if you include the offspring of beneficiaries (probably more). More than 6000 have been on the benefit for more than 10 years.
The Klark government has focused its welfare spending on about 200,000 voters who are thoroughly indoctrinated students, about 850,000 voters who are on benefits and super, and around 450,000 Maori and Pacific Island voters. Looking after these groups is the core of Labour’s re-election strategy. (ooops, the Maori Party, what a damn nuisance..!!)
As well as these people, there’s a multitude (estimated 400,000) of public servants. A large percentage of these people have a vested interest in seeing Labour re-elected, as many of them have been hired due to Klark’s deliberate strategy of enlarging the public service,and therefore making more people dependent on her Mugabe style largess.
Even landlords become dependent on government. More than 50% of the office space in Wellington is leased by government. (I think it was about 18% before Klark came to power.)
Another good and important example is the PM’s massive propaganda department, those highly paid cronyist scum who daily bombard us with pitiful socialist drivel from high. Relatively small in number, they are still because of their media savvy and reach, capable of generating considerable influence in any election. They’ll be pedaling commie crap like there’s no tomorrow in the interests of maintaining their undeserved tax payer funded lifestyle. Typical nomenklatura.
The above is what I’m talking about when I frequently say the socialists, and socialism as an ideology, are/ is a threat to democracy. You cannot have true democracy with so many people dependent upon Mugabe style government largess.
Socialists don’t care about democracy tho. They profess to, but really, all they ever care about is power.
Most stats above from Muriel Newman’s site.
Vote:April 30th, 2008 at 11:46 am
NZ is finally realising that in order to maintain our previous standards of living we need to be a lot cleverer. The days of paying people to do nothing are drawing to a close.
We all live by trading (commmodities, time, shares, property, land etc) with one another.
The margins on each trade are now at a point that we are all looking at each other and wondering how we will make a profit and thus ensure our own individual wellbeing.
Our true productive sector has contracted over the years. Under the current regime we are doomed to go around in ever diminishing circles. Our standard of living is destined to drop even further.
The 35% of voters who will still support Labour this election will want to continue living in the manner to which they have grown accustomed. Their mind set seals their fate, as we as a country can no longer afford to carry them. They need more money (both wages and benefits) but the pot is empty.
Our economy has been left behind. Instead of starting this century with a strong vision we have set forth looking back over our shoulders and carrying a sack of burden.
The socialist welfare world view was throughly thrashed last century and the ragtail remnants of a once proud labour party are finally showing their true colours.
Thankfully a majority of NZers now recognise this and are ready to move on as a country.
Vote:Bring on this election and let us get a fresh start , for all our sakes.
April 30th, 2008 at 11:48 am
RedBaiter, not all public servants will vote Labour. In Australia a lot of public servants voted Rudd despite his clear promise to shrink the public sector – whilst Howard had presided over a massive growth in the size of the bureaucracy.
I’ll accept for some it might be just habit – vote Labour – but at least some of them thought that the size of the public sector was getting disgraceful.
Vote:April 30th, 2008 at 11:49 am
Boomtownprat, Redbaiter, right on. Some philosopher in the 1800′s once said something like, Democracy will only work until some majority works out how to vote itself largesse at the expense of some minority……….
Vote:April 30th, 2008 at 11:55 am
“RedBaiter, not all public servants will vote Labour.”
I didn’t say they would. I deliberately used the term “a large percentage”. I know well enough that not every public servant is a Labour Party/ Klark stooge.
Phil Best- Alexander Tytler, and I think in the late 1700s. Love that quote. Commies of course will never learn.
Vote: