Maybe as an aim, we could start to look at how one would achieve one?

…his so called coup was a dog whistle and too many of you fell for it.

Hogwash, Clint. ACT’s creaking.

The question’s not whether Coddington was a mistake – everyone seems to agree on that – but whether the remodelling of Hide was a much more important mistake.

We need a right-of-centre party, correct. But whether we need ACT in its current state is debatable.

Coddington was a mistake – as I am sure the Nats can point to dozens of MPs who also fall into that category. So bloody what? This so called coup was a dog whistle and too many of you fell for it.

…the latest financial crisis was due to free market capitalism being absent…

It is absurd to say state-controlled economics and absence of free-market capitalism caused the finance-company mass collapse in NZ, which has led to mainly old investors losing or having locked up four or five billion dollars. What state controls? Please explain James how state controls caused this disaster.

Internationally, the financial crisis owed much to absence of regulation of new financial instruments such as credit default swaps. The property bubble which underlay the leadup to the crisis, both in America, and internationally, owed much to the hands off policy of Alan Greenspan as head of the Federal Reserve Board. Interestingly, Greenspan was one of the key members of the cult that grew up around Ayn Rand in her lifetime.

Unregulated Capitalism (read true free markey capitalism….and thats regulated far more efficiently by itself than any politician) has never been IN popular favour for the last hundred odd years anywhere in to really count.The latest financial crisis was due to free market capitalism being absent…and state controlled economics failing yet again.

The woman who was Deputy Leader of the Libertarianz! Left to join Act, and gerrymander a seat in the House! Did nothing but swan off to the UK and take part in some Wally Award for tyro Journalists!

A woman last seen being chased or chasing something around the Parliamentary grounds at 2.30 a.m.

A Fruit Cake and a Flake who ditched the ACT Party after the change in Leaders to Rodney, who minged about on the fringes of a lot of things before marrying a farm and income, – Has now proclaimed herself the Mother of the Right?

The woman professed Ayn Rand for Gods Sake! She believes in “Objectivism so she said! She is a failure of mammoth proportions, and is the resaon we need a serious Sunday paper in this country. Dear Lord Rodney, spare us from the pretensions of this looney member of anything, – failed politician and reporter.

…How do you account then for a 10,000 increase in majority in Epsom in 2008?

1. Rodney Hide was up against Richard Worth, who had held the seat in 1999 and 2002. Worth as a politician on the National List has since come down in flames.

2. The perks mess of Hide surfaced after the general election. The hubris was still to peak when the 2008 election was held. The nemesis would follow that peak.

Those who set the ACT list for the latest election narrowed the base of the party by ruling out the fart-tax protester with deep agriculture experience, and causing the defection of Stephen Franks with his legal skills and political ability. Unregulated capitalism is at present out of popular favour after the international property and banking turmoil and finance-company carnage in New Zealand. So sadly ACT with its tight focus on Friedman economics would struggle to win new supporters if an election were held now. How much tougher it would be for Rodney H. in Epsom would depend on the candidate National put up.

How do you account then for a 10,000 increase in majority in Epsom in 2008?

Coddington didn’t particularly impress as an MP, and she was just a list MP as were the ACT MPs she is rubbishing.

Coddington may be on the wrong track about Rodney’s single minded determination, too. That drive to dance, to lose weight, to go dry, to lift heavy dumbells, to run marathons, and to swim lakes, was followed by a need for a new and young lover as is typical of the heroes in Ayn Rand novels, loved by many ACT followers, such as the Zappers in Christchurch.

However, the Rand-fiction I can do anything, become anybody bullshit lost us the old firebrand Rodney that so appealed with his dirt digging, his quips, and his humour. That drained out of Rodney with the beer and the superfluous flesh. Gone was our political Robin Hood.