Mr and Mrs Bridges
September 11th, 2008 at 12:00 pm by David Farrar
Rachel Glucina seems to be a big fan of the next MP for Tauranga, and his wife. She blogs:
Together Simon and Nat are set to inject a je ne sais quoi in to the impending election. They are the John and Jackie Kennedy of Kiwi politics, but smarter and not philandering.
Oh dear. Simon will get mercilessly teased over this. JFK II. He might want to avoid visiting Texas if Winston is there at the same time!
Natalie Bridges happily posed for my snapper Norrie with her colleagues from Simply You magazine, but she – and I found this interesting – was very careful to make sure she didn’t appear too fun-loving in the snaps. We can’t have that for the spouse of the next MP of Tauranga, she figured. And she’s right. Dignified and dainty is the way to go.
I expect Simon to win Tauranga with a very respectable majority. Some of that will be Natalie’s work!
And intelligent, too. They have to be one of the smartest couples on the political landscape. The pair met at Oxford University where she was studying English Literature; he was studying law at post-graduate level. They married at a small, ancient chapel on the grounds of Oxford and later set up home in Tauranga bringing with them a glamorous X-factor NZ politics hasn’t seen for some time.
Meeting and marrying at Oxford. Nice.
Bridges may have had a meteoric rise on our political platform, aided, let’s not forget, by Peters’ alleged memory loss, but his star is only just beginning to burn bright. Mark my words, the Bridges and their Camelot in Tauranga will be all the talk at election time.
I think it is fair to conclude, Rachel’s a fan!
September 11th, 2008 at 12:05 pm
Bridges may be very good, his wife delightful, but the gushing article- made me want to puke.
Camelot in Tauranga – tosh
Vote:September 11th, 2008 at 12:07 pm
You dont think she might have been being, like….ironic?
Vote:September 11th, 2008 at 12:17 pm
makes her sound like she might be his mistress!
Vote:September 11th, 2008 at 12:28 pm
Adamsmith, I had exactly the same reaction. From what I understand Simon Bridges is an outstanding candidate, and they make a great couple, but this celebrity trash totting itself up to be political commentary is just demeaning. It isn’t Bridges fault of course, but what next? Women’s Day magazine covers for them? Politicians aren’t distant celebrities, lording over us, who we’re supposed to look up to and adore. They’re supposed to be accessible and serving our interests. Elevating them to celebrity status is just sickening.
Vote:September 11th, 2008 at 12:49 pm
This publicity highlighting the differences between Simon and the other Tauranga candidate is great. It’s certainly better than bad publicity referring to left testicles…
I think Simon will be fantastic
Vote:September 11th, 2008 at 1:05 pm
Funny… it doesn’t look like Larry Baldock to me!
Vote:September 11th, 2008 at 1:31 pm
Having Pork Chop as a fan is no great accolade. I’m sure Cactus Kate will have more to say on this.
Vote:September 11th, 2008 at 1:35 pm
Jeepers, National have JFK and Obama! Losing is now impossible!
Vote:September 11th, 2008 at 1:45 pm
“the gushing article- made me want to puke.”
Me too. They’re politicians for chrissake. Every time they assemble in parliament, another of our freedoms gets taken away.
Vote:September 11th, 2008 at 1:51 pm
Lipstick on a pig, hmm.
Oh, sorry, wrong thread.
Vote:September 11th, 2008 at 2:37 pm
Well at least there are a damn sight better looking than the uglies that infest the socialist and communist lineup.
Vomit inducing all of them
Vote:September 11th, 2008 at 3:28 pm
Not sure that this ‘gushing’ type reporting is overly helpful but that is not Simon’s or Natalie’s fault.
Still, perhaps that’s the way it is nowdays.
Whatever, Winston’s history, and no-ones the looser (except perhaps a few desiccated ‘blue rinsers’).
Vote:September 11th, 2008 at 3:54 pm
Tend to agree with Red. They are politicians – albeit attractive ones in the American sense.
That last thing we want is to go increasingly to the US way. The bottom line is that America loves celebrity. Where they come from is not important, provided they come out of nowhere. But strangely, and perhaps unfortunately for Palin and Obama both, America also loves to see celebrities fall.
Same in NZ, I think.
Vote:September 11th, 2008 at 5:52 pm
“Meeting and marrying at Oxford. Nice.”
Assuming you arent displaying hitherto unsuspected depths of deadpan irony…….you still appear to have a cultural cringe a mile wide
[DPF: What the fuck are you on about?]
Vote:September 11th, 2008 at 6:22 pm
Didn’t Winston say Tauranga needed two bridges?
Vote:September 11th, 2008 at 7:59 pm
Know Simon and Natalie – a wonderful young couple; and Simon is a very impressive young man. Both are down to earth – despite the article referred to – and I see Simon winning Tauranga comfortably, and staying for a considerable time.
Minister of Justice in 2 or 3 terms? Has been a very efective Public Prosecutor here in Tga for a few years, and has a very good grip on law and order, and the current defficiencies in our legal system. Even though some commenters have scoffed at Bob *the Builder*, Bob has been good for Tauranga even though not very prominent in Wellington, as Simon is taking in a lot of what Bob has to say.
BTW I am an unashamedly proud member of the Tauranga branch of the National Party. So I s’pose I would say that
Vote:September 11th, 2008 at 8:34 pm
Funny, I’ve lived here for 40 years and until he was nominated had never heard of the guy. But then I don’t fraternize with lawyers or their criminal clients,( who are probably not going to be voting anyway) , National party friends etc. and since his nomination this is about the most I’ve heard about him. And you smug buggers think we should all vote for him.
Vote:Ryall on the other hand spent countless hours getting elected by going door to door and making sure everyone knew who he was, and got elected. Hasn’t done a lot since of course.
Bob, made himself known by his deeds.( oh yes and his left testicle I think it was. Great guy.)
Unfortunately someone being a public prosecutor doesn’t inspire my imagination about his abilities. What does he know about business problems, how hard it is to live for a family who don’t have the benefit of a high income despite working all the hours God sends and so on.
Without disrespecting him he fails in the life living skills dept. and worse he has spent a number of years dealing with the scumbags of the community which tends to lead to an attitude that everyone is a scumbag waiting to be caught.
I could be wrong and time will tell but in my view he will be another suited career Nat politico that never ever makes a difference for NZ.
The only reason he will get elected here is because it has been safe National for as long as I can remember until Winnie the First Dick came along. Thanks to Bob his reign ended and so now we will go back to being treated as a safe seat like we always used to be. That means nothing will happen for Tauranga anymore again.
And Don you know that’s so.
September 11th, 2008 at 9:07 pm
Viking2.
Bit of a cynic, aren’t you. I’m hardly a smug bugger – I’m a builder, and I don’t fraternise with lawyers or their criminal * clients* (isn’t it a pity that the law requires legal representation to even the worst criminals (gag)).
So maybe if you got off your arse and looked around, you’d discover that being a public prosecutor doesn’t limit ones abilities. The only reason why nothing happened in Tauranga during the Winston *reign*, was that he pissed National off over his dispute with Bolger, and then Labour decided that as long as he was in Tauranga, nothing would happen: until, of course, it suited Helen to get him on board.
Don’t tar another political aspirant with the same brush. Plenty will happen for Tautanga – as it has started to with Bob here. Under a National administration you’ll see a lot of improvements. But you don’t have to believe me. Talk to Simon and Bob – and Tony Ryall for that matter – they are all very approachable.
Vote:September 11th, 2008 at 10:16 pm
Ross, I quite agree that this piece of trash isn’t the Bridges fault at all, and they can’t do anything to stop some silly little bint pretending to be a political reporter, when she’s run out of sleaze and gossip to write about, making them the hot couple of the week.
Pretty much everything I’ve heard about Simon Bridges has been very positive. He’s intelligent, hard-working, engaging. But celebrity couple they are not, and while I’m sure that his wife is a very capable woman, outside of Tauranga I don’t see her having any celebrity status via Simon unless Simon becomes Prime Minister. Even then, I can’t think of a “glamour power-couple” in New Zealand politics, ever. Yvonne Moore, perhaps. But that isn’t the norm, and only happened when Moore became PM.
Again this is no disrespect to the Bridges, because they didn’t create this.
Viking2, you have made a lot of comments about Bridges, some of which are true. Your claim that he doesn’t have a lot of life experience is self-evident. He’s 31 years old. What do you expect of a 31 year old? As an aside, Bridges is older, and has more life experience than Tony Ryall had when he entered Parliament.
From what I’ve heard Bridges is also working very hard, winning votes door-to-door. I don’t think he managed to lead the man who’d held the seat for 21 years, by the huge poll margins we’ve seen publicly, by being lazy or lucky.
Your claim that he has only associated with criminals seems to suggest you are confused with the difference between a criminal prosecutor and a criminal defence lawyer. In my experience there’s a big difference between the two sorts of people. He wasn’t dealing with the scumbags. He was dealing to the scumbags. I think that’s a badge of honour.
Vote:September 11th, 2008 at 10:29 pm
You missed the point really. Nothing happened here before Winston came along because it was a safe seat, nothing while he was here and only when the seat had some leverage via the Winston /Clarkson contest did we see anything for this town.
Vote:We will simply go back to they way things were. Ignored because we don’t count.
I f you bothered to be honest and knew anything at all about the Nats. you would know that they have never made change in NZ except for two major policies. Think Big which was vilified because of the way it was managed and The Contracts Act which again was vilified because it left no protection for the weak, despite being the being otherwise the most constructive piece of legislation that any Nat ever churned out.
A cynic I may be but at least I don’t just follow the party prattle and oh yes I’ve heard all the “you should join and make changes from inside” , from My Nat. friends but they have mostly given up in disgust. In the end you are just slightly right of the socialists so we will still be stuck with the mediocrity that pervades our politics.
As for looking around I think I can safely say that I would have talked to more people in their homes around this district in the last 13-14 years than anybody else you can name. That’s been part of my job and so I think I can tell you more about what people think and how they have been affected than a few survey forms returned by Nat. Voters, although I am not suggesting that you shouldn’t ask the questions.
And incidentally, being a builder doesn’t stop you being a smug bugger, for there are a few of those round here who have inflicted disastrous consequences upon their customers and then folded up their tents and left for other pastures green so they won’t be sued. At least Bob had the right idea to sort out that issue. It remains to be seen if those he has left behind will actually front and assist people as he suggests.
At the end of the day Simon moved here as prosecutor because it gave him access to this safe seat if he waited for his chance. Winston did the same and even you would be hard pressed to say he did a lot for Tauranga. The Nats. are full of career politicians and intellectuals who came out of the same universities as the Labour ones so hard to see that the ideas will be much different from the lot that are there now.
As I said in my last post we don’t know anything about this guy, I can safely say neither do my staff and once again you smug buggers think we should vote him in on the basis that he is a Nat. Now that’s the sort of arrogance Clark would dish out. His job is to earn his vote and so far the working man in the industrial areas and out on the orchards etc wouldn’t have clue who he is. So if he wants to earn his place he better get a decent pair of shoes and get out and about and walk the streets.
He won’t of course and because of the unfortunate behavoir(to say the least) of the present incumbents will be allowed to sleep walk to victory. (that is of course if the Nats. don’t stuff it up, which they have been apt to do of late.)
September 11th, 2008 at 10:33 pm
Me too. They’re politicians for chrissake. Every time they assemble in parliament, another of our freedoms gets taken away.
Redbaiter, you may be confusing conservative politicians with liberal politicians. Conservative politicians don’t take freedoms away, they increase them. Now Bridges may or may not be a conservative – sadly one cannot be sure with Nats, goodbye and no thanks to Clem *Spit* Simich – but there is no point tarring all politicians with the same brush when good, brave, strong politicians like Rodney Hide, John Key, Roger DOuglas and Bill English are working hard to fight for us.
When you insult all politicians you are insulting Margaret Thatcher, Ronald Reagan and Winston Churchill. I won’t stand for that.
Vote:September 12th, 2008 at 12:26 am
Viking2 “I would have talked to more people in their homes around this district in the last 13-14 years than anybody else you can name.”
Must be a postman….
You clearly don’t read the local paper or listen to the radio, so it would be hard for anyone to communicate with you. And given that the average electorate has 25,000 households with 40000, knocking on your door would be a challenge. In the days when Ryall first stood, it was 19,000 votes per electorate. But don’t let little things like MMP. population growth and the EFA get in the way of a cogent argument . You stick to your grumpy mind set! Some believe that Santa does do all the deliverys on 25 Dec, but there you go.
But more insightful was your assertion was that nation only “[n]ever made change in NZ except for two major policies”.
Confirmation you have never read a newspaper…..
Vote:September 12th, 2008 at 8:50 am
So Viking2 … be honest now. Who do you support politically.
Sounds like you are a cheer leader for the most corrupt party to hold the reins of government in recent history.
Vote:September 12th, 2008 at 11:50 am
Actually, I have a suspicion Viking may be the Tauranga ACT candidate…If this is the case (and I may be wrong) but if it is, then he will get the vote he deserves…
Vote:September 12th, 2008 at 5:46 pm
And Viking 2 wanks on again, putting down people he has never met, making assertions that belong in the 1980′s, and claims that he knows how people think. AND denigrates builders when in fact, its developers who cause problems . I repeat, get off your arse and have a good look around – you’re talking to the wrong people.
Vote:September 12th, 2008 at 7:14 pm
Actually it was you Don that resorted to bad language and developers were not responsible for building leaking homes, one of which I was in today. No sign of the builder but a huge mortgage for the owners to repair their home, like so many others.
Nige, I;m definitely not a postman and you show how uneducated you are in simple things, for postman do not go into peoples houses and enjoy conversations with their occupants.
As for reading the paper, well what can one say. Regurgitated news from the MSM. BOP Times don’t even have reporters (paid staff) these days,but collect copy from anyone they think they can print. Our paper is an appalling shadow of what it used to be, in fact most nights more adverts than editorial. So if you think reading the ads raises your intelligence and knowledge go for it.
Making excuses for the plain lack of ground work on the part of a candidate is pathetic. Even more pathetic is using the EFA as an excuse for not talking to people on a one to one basis is even worse for that is not yet controlled by the EFA. What is controlled is the battering of everyones ears with radio and TV etc but only because you are unable to spend the money doing so. ( I would point out that I disagree vehemently with the EFA and if you were to go to NZCPD forum you will see that we have had much debate over the issue. ( similarly the ETS , Winston Peters and many other subjects.)
You also show a clear lack of political knowledge about the National Party and its policy and I challenge you to put up any major change that the Nats. have bought to NZ other than the two I have mentioned. And I’m talking major change, not playing round the edges or policy that has disadvantaged many NZ er’s or changes forced upon them by external factors.
Ross, Fortunately for me I figured out Peters and Clark a long time ago so forget about endeavoring to denigrate me with that rubbish. It makes you just like the socialists who spend their days attempting that sort of garbage on all who blog. Try the The Standard they could teach you something about that.
First time caller. You are wrong. But just to cheer you up you may well be surprised at the level of the ACT vote. After all The Nats sat on the arse (as the builder would say) and allowed Hide to destroy this socialist lot and its henchmen. Something they didn’t have the fortitude to do. There will be a reward for that. And you know Helen is in someways right. Do we trust the Nats. After all,they cut the dole way back, cut the pensions and a myriad of other things they did to people so the question still remains what are they going to do this time.
While I have a considerable liking for Key he still has English in finance and wanting control so we still have a battle within.
Peters today has clearly aligned himself with Labour and he still has a following so you guys should not feel so smug.
Perhaps you are going to cosy up to the Maori Party. That will a sellout of your voters and tantamount to selling out to Peters in the past, but worse, for Peters was at least from National, (oh, did you forget that. He was once touted as a possible first Maori PM while a Nat.)
And last back to Don the honest kiwi builder. If you wish to debate, that’s just fine put up your arguments to be debated without lowering yourself to calling names. One of the things about history is that most people never learn from history and that’s just why the same mistakes are repeated again and again. You seem to have contempt for that learning on the basis of Clarks instruction to move on.
The other thing name calling shows is that you really have no soundly based argument so you resort to being a bully. Don’t like bullies.
And please show me where or how I have “put down” anyone. I have shown up what I consider to be shortfalls in performance and knowledge, all legitimate subject for criticism but I have never (that I can see) made comment about the person as such.
As for getting off my arse, this week I have been in about 20 homes and workplaces, all as a result of of customer demand for our services, all unsolicited freely made demands, and as part of customer relations it is my job to talk to the customers.
(and before someone starts doing sums I used to do a lot more than that on a daily basis.)
These customers range from rich to poor, Katikati to Te Puke so I think I can safely say I talk to a wide cross section of people and unlike you not just a few around me with like minds who will tell you what you want to hear to keep the peace.
And Ross just to finish, my wifes Grandmother was the wife of a Labour MP in the first Labour Govt. When My wife became old enough to vote he asked if she was going to vote for Labour. (Labour families did that ) Her Grandmother quickly intervened and said that you never have to reveal who you vote for.
Vote:Because I choose to debate issues with you doesn’t give you or anyone else the right to know who I support.
September 22nd, 2008 at 6:00 pm
I think Viking2 is a sky installer. I had one visit here a while ago who had far too much to say about politics.
Simon is doing a bloody great job. He is working his butt off and power to him – he’s got it in the bag.
As for that revolting character Anne Pankhurst – my god that woman has some enemies. I can’t believe she still shows her face around Tauranga as I have never heard anyone bad mouthed as much as her. She is one cunning psycho – she gets her self elected onto boards (that no one wants to be on anyway) so as to enhance her social life (of which she wouldn’t have one otherwise, she would be holed up in her little bedsit scoffing cake and getting shit faced). The latest is that she has been elected unopposed to the Tauranga Chamber as vice-president…yet she works as the event manager there? Anyone see a conflict of interest? Never mind that chambers are politically neutral.
Vote:September 25th, 2008 at 3:57 pm
Just read through all of this. I’ve been following Bridges’ political career since uni days. This guy hasn’t just come down in the last rainfall so forget about lack of political experience and other crap like that. Bridges has been focussed and hard-working in politics for years. Even at uni he was ballsy and principled enough to support his views in that hard-core bastion of blinkered dogmatic lefties (many of whom, for the most part ironically have abandoned left wing politics once they left uni, got real jobs and started to pay taxes).
Since then, he’s worked his butt off in the toughest area of the law which, you have to remember is more than just the crims – it’s the raw side of the commmunity involving victims, witnesses and every layer of the justice system. Bridges knows and understands his community more than most including the harsh realities of life at all levels of the community. Plus, and this is a huge plus, he understands the wider context of how that community fits into the nation’s political landscape and how New Zealand fits into the world. Plus Viking2 – he’s hitting the streets every waking minute of every day. Tauranga – you’ll be in the best hands.
Re the camelot article – have met that writer before too – I’m not big on the gossip rags but don’t forget (in fairness to her) a disturbingly massive proportion of potential voters are completely disinterested in and oblivious to their own democratic nation. Anything to engage their attention in an election year, on any level, must surely be a good thing?
Vote: