Greens abandon Bradford, she claims

June 4th, 2010 at 1:00 pm by David Farrar

The Dom Post reports:

Former Green Party MP Sue Bradford has abandoned plans to run for the Auckland super-city council, saying she has been left high and dry by her party.

The Green Party is gathering in Christchurch today for its annual conference. Ms Bradford will miss it for the first time in 12 years.

“I don’t have a role there,” Ms Bradford said. I’ve lost my place to stand with the Green Party.”

She had seriously considered running for a place as a councillor on the super-city board but had reluctantly backed out.

“I came to see that I didn’t have the support of Labour and the Greens.”

A pity in a sense. The thought of Sue as Deputy Mayor would have galvanised many people to vote, just to vote against her.

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63 Responses to “Greens abandon Bradford, she claims”

  1. Pauleastbay (3,726) Says:

    Why would she need to run for council, I would have thought that Fortune 500 companies would have been queuing up to offer her directorships !!

    The common sense and lateral thinking that she would bring to the free market would be of enormous benefit to all those companies out there generating some wealth.

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  2. RRM (7,207) Says:

    Good. She did good work with the smacking defence but generally was taking them in a direction they didn’t need to go. More environmental policy, less social policy please.

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  3. Put it away (2,887) Says:

    Utterly unlamented.

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  4. Inventory2 (8,796) Says:

    To quote Helen Clark: “Diddums”

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  5. Johnboy (10,722) Says:

    The Greenies may have abandoned her but ugly hasn’t it will always be with her.

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  6. RKBee (1,344) Says:

    Sue Bradford abandoned … no surprises there.

    I wonder how long it takes her to run out of money… and start drawing the unemployment benefit.

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  7. Swiftman the infidel (329) Says:

    Fake ‘Commie’ but in fact upper-class obnoxious toff Bradford has finally managed to piss off the entire world.

    Well done Sue!

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  8. big bruv (11,198) Says:

    This is not new, the Greens used to abandon or hide Bradford away from the public and the media prior to every election in which she stood.

    The left know that has she stood as Len Browns deputy they would have handed the mayoral race to Banksie on a plate.

    Imagine how the right would have made fun of that, “Bradford, one heartbeat away from the mayoral chains”

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  9. Peter (1,084) Says:

    The loyalty of the left.

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  10. Komata (783) Says:

    RKBee

    ‘I wonder how long it takes her to run out of money… and start drawing the unemployment benefit’

    Wasn’t that how she got into polit8ics in the firast place – as the leader (and manipulator) of ‘The Unemployed Workers Party’?

    Since she is an unreconstructed Communist (Maoist version) kamarade Sue will doubtless make very sure that she receives all that she is ‘entitled’ too – they always do. (Unless of course she is a closet capitalist – it has been known . . .)

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  11. Johnboy (10,722) Says:

    You mean she was the leader of Phool the Magpie’s party not that you could add the title ‘worker’ after the title ‘unemployed ‘ in his case.

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  12. scrubone (2,303) Says:

    She must be feeling especially bad, since she was also slapped down recently on child discipline by Nigel Latta.

    But I should add that this is appalling behavior by the Green party. If they weren’t prepared to associate with her after parliament, why did they have her in the party?

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  13. peterwn (2,165) Says:

    Another case of someone with a ‘sense of entitlement’ to some job or role after Parliament.

    Seems City Vision (Labour + Greens AFAIK) did not consider her visionary enough.

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  14. krazykiwi (9,188) Says:

    Comrade Bradford’s pathetic lament reminds me of a similar situation: Georgina Beyer off to Aussie as can’t get job in NZ. “Nobody loves me, everybody hates me. I’m going to the garden to eat worms”… as if anything sour could make Bradford look any more bitter and twisted.

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  15. Gooner (995) Says:

    She’s a liar. No surprises there.

    She’s not standing because she doesn’t want to ignite the right and thereby cause the left too much damage. The Left love her, but realise she’s a liability, unfortunately for them they say.

    If Brown Len wins the mayoralty, Sue will have a top job right next to his office.

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  16. Bryce Edwards (248) Says:

    I think it’s a pity that Bradford isn’t standing. The rest of the field looks pretty boring so far, and at least Bradford would have injected something a bit more dynamic into the super city contest regardless of what you think of her politics.

    But Bradford’s frankness about why she isn’t standing is very interesting. Few people will realise just how bitter things became in the Green Party in the period between the time of the co-leadership election campaign and her resignation from Parliament. Although it was in everyone’s interest to have Bradford’s departure kept sweet, even she couldn’t quite contain herself and occasionally let slip how unhappy she was with the political direction of the Greens. And she’s obviously particularly bitter towards Russel Norman.

    Although people who leave comments on Kiwiblog might think that the Greens are radical leftists (“watermelons”), Bradford could see that this certain was no longer the case (if indeed it ever was). She was very concerned about the new, professionalised, pragmatic and middle-of-the-road direction that the new leadership wanted to take in the party in. The total rejection of her as co-leadership – and she lost the conference vote by a huge margin apparently – was all part of the rejection of her more radical vision for the Greens. And so, this latest development – the Greens essentially rejecting her as a super city candidate – is in line with the party’s previous dislike and fear of her radicalism.

    It’s a bit out of date now, but here’s some analysis of the bad Bradford-Greens relationship from last year:
    http://liberation.typepad.com/liberation/2009/10/a-bad-marriage-leads-to-divorce-the-splintering-of-the-greens.html
    http://liberation.typepad.com/liberation/2009/10/sue-bradford-the-green-party-has-lost-its-radical-edge-and-differentiation.html
    http://liberation.typepad.com/liberation/2009/05/sue-bradford-the-greens-futile-left-option.html

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  17. david (2,299) Says:

    The article goes on to say that she has started a PhD in Public Policy. Interest free student loan anyone?

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  18. tom hunter (3,852) Says:

    “I don’t have a role there,” Ms Bradford said. I’ve lost my place to stand with the Green Party.”

    I think she could have issued something stronger than that. The following are suggestions for her press release:

    It was ever thus

    Only the blindest bureaucrat, or the most irresponsible dilettante adventuring in the movement, can fail to see the unbounded consequences of the bureaucratic expulsion policy of the leadership and to react with alarm against it. It directly threatens the existence of the party.
    ……..
    Bureaucratic suppression has its own logic. It begins with the expulsion of individuals and ends with the disruption of the movement.
    …….
    The regime of bureaucratic strangulation, which expels its outspoken opponents and bludgeons the party into silence, has become an international phenomenon of the period. This is the only key to an understanding of its absolutely unprecedented excesses. A real struggle against it cannot be made without an understanding of its international scope.
    ……..
    The fiction of “proletarian representation” was never more clearly exposed than it is by these simple facts. All this is in correlation to the shifting class composition of the upper circles of the party.
    ……..The wholesale expulsion of proletarian fighters goes hand in hand with the steady recruitment of all kinds of dubious, petty-bourgeois careerist and half-baked intellectual elements.

    In the upper circles of the party, in the party apparatus, this increased proportion of nonproletarians is enormously expanded. Under the regime, these elements are appearing more and more on all sides as party representatives, officials, managers, directors, teachers, supervisors. Coming to these positions without sufficient pre-requisites, they bring with them the detestable careerist attributes of insolence, arrogance and pride of office, antagonizing and alienating the worker elements and thrusting them aside.

    The “education’ dispensed in the party school under such auspices is becoming a distorted caricature of revolutionary training. It is led almost exclusively by school teachers, dentists, “professors,” journalists —everything except proletarian leaders tested by the class struggle.

    The failure of the party to grow in the favorable objective circumstances, the defeats it has suffered where victories were possible, its poor showing in the election with the field to itself as the party of the class struggle, the collapse of its trade union work, etc., are due primarily to the false leadership. Official bombast and factional trickery can no longer obscure or hide these condemning facts. The fight for the party is a fight against the systematic Opportunist policy of the leadership and the bureaucratic regime with which it fortifies itself against control and correction from below.

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  19. Barnsley Bill (855) Says:

    This is a major blow to John Banks electoral chances.
    On a more positive note it is nice to see Bradford categorised alongside the cock in a frock as the only two leftards to not get nice shiny jobs for life when they leave parliament. Being placed alngside Beyer as too useless to be given a retirement trough to gorge from must make her piss burn.

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  20. Taxanddeathforsure(1) Says:

    All I can say is Auckland has lost a great leader and visionary. She would have applied her communist and socialist principles and converted Auckland into a shanty town. Sorry Jaffas. You missed out big time.

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  21. tom hunter (3,852) Says:

    Oh God – given Bryce Edwards’ commentary it is clear that satire is entirely redundant

    Muuuuuuhahahahaha

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  22. Bryce Edwards (248) Says:

    Yes, Tom, I take your point. When I read your amusing contribution I thought something along the lines that “my analysis is entirely redundant”.

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  23. john.bt (169) Says:

    Oh dear, what a shame. Tsk tsk. Banksie must be seriously pissed off.

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  24. tom hunter (3,852) Says:

    Well – either yours or mine is redundant. History repeating as farce perhaps?

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  25. Jeremy Harris (323) Says:

    I really don’t see why she couldn’t stand for an electorate on her own… Why does one need any party behind them, especially in local politics..?

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  26. Murray (8,832) Says:

    Good, she did great evil with her anti-smacking bill and its good to see her tossed aside, embittered and irrelivant.

    The greens obviously see that even if the trolls don’t. Go to the morning briefing guys.

    The real reason she isn;t running is the same reason Gerogina Beyer changed her mind about standing in the Wairarapa again. No one would vote for her. Which according to her is “voter apathy”. Or “voter common sense” for those of us not subject to political spin.

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  27. Simon (360) Says:

    Do you mean the middle of the roads greens when they wanted everyone to stop having babies unless they were Maori?

    Or the Greens turned a corner when Wuessl Norman who despises economic growth and instead determined that resources need to be safe guarded by the politburo as our current resource allocation ( ie living standards) were doing mother Gaia in.

    If the Greens are now middle of the road the road must run through downtown Pyongyang.

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  28. Murray (8,832) Says:

    You’re a hard man Simon.

    But fair.

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  29. krazykiwi (9,188) Says:

    I heard Red Russ on the radio this morning. Something about the Greens needing to get their economic message well articulated so the people of NZ could see they’re fit for Government. God help us. And I mean that!

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  30. Murray (8,832) Says:

    I think they’ve articulated their economic message very well already.

    Which is why only slef interested socialist drug abusers will vote them.

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  31. Manolo (9,857) Says:

    The Luddite Greens will send NZ back to the Stone Age in a short time. Their economic model is as viable as North Korea’s.

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  32. philu (13,393) Says:

    “..I really don’t see why she couldn’t stand for an electorate on her own..”

    that’d be because she dosen’t want to split the progressive -vote…

    phil(whoar.co.nz)

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  33. Jeremy Harris (323) Says:

    As much as it pains me to say it – good point…

    I’ve been outsmarted by Philu…

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  34. peterwn (2,165) Says:

    Worse has happened to those who deserved better. In ‘Animal Farm’ Boxer the draft horse was sent off to the knackers when he was unable to work any more despite the promise of retirement in green pastures for the animals too old to work or produce. I do not think Sue ever worked in the way that Boxer and *real* workers do.

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  35. RKBee (1,344) Says:

    Jeremy Harris @ 3:42 pm
    As much as it pains me to say it – good point…

    I’ve been outsmarted by Philu…

    Then you are in a category all on your own on this site… and the only one.

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  36. Swiftman the infidel (329) Says:

    “Or the Greens turned a corner when Wuessl Norman who despises economic growth…”

    Except his own, of course.

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  37. Murray (8,832) Says:

    “progressive”. WTF is that, code for lets all live in caves? (Except green mps who are “too busy” to take the bus.)

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  38. philu (13,393) Says:

    “…I do not think Sue ever worked in the way that Boxer and *real* workers do…”

    given the social support network she built in the 90′s…(after national tore it all away..)

    ..and given the number of private members bill she got through parliament in her time there…

    ..and given she was one of the most respected mp’s…by other mp’s of all ideological-stripes..

    ..this wd all go some way to proving that you are just blowing that one fresh outta yr arse….

    ..eh..?

    phil(whoar.co.nz)

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  39. krazykiwi (9,188) Says:

    Murray – Yeah I really hate the way left have framed the language on this.

    Their version of progress is a gradual disempowerment of the individual and matching rise in state dominance.

    That’s no progression. It’s oppression.

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  40. philu (13,393) Says:

    for muzza….

    “…Progressivism is a political attitude favoring or advocating changes or reform.

    Progressivism is often viewed in opposition to conservative …or reactionary ideologies…”

    (um..!..that’s you muzza…. ‘..conservative …or reactionary ideologies’…)

    “…The Progressive Movement began in cities with settlement workers and reformers who were interested in helping those facing harsh conditions at home and at work.

    The reformers spoke out about the need for laws regulating tenement housing … and child labor.

    They also called for better working conditions for women…”

    mmm-kay…?

    phil(whoar.co.nz)

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  41. Swiftman the infidel (329) Says:

    “For example where I live at the moment – in South Auckland – how do you get across to working class Maori and pakeha and pacific island people on the streets of Mangere and Otara – how can we talk about our policies on climate change in a way that they can understand… ”

    So Sue, these people are thick and stupid because they don’t agree with your toffy policies that will put them out of a job for no environmental gain?

    What a bitch!

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  42. Murray (8,832) Says:

    blah blah dribble dribble wank wank is all I heard.

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  43. RKBee (1,344) Says:

    ..and given she was one of the most respected mp’s…by other mp’s of all ideological-stripes..

    Phil like Jeremy has been drinking to much of Jeremy’s brother Robert’s coffee.

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  44. rouppe (629) Says:

    Given she was active in an unemployed workers movement, perhaps she could run for election in Auckland on a non-Auckland residents ticket…

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  45. MikeNZ (3,234) Says:

    The greens are the new left.
    Labour is positively center compared to them.

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  46. side show bob (3,660) Says:

    Philly 4.19 pm, do you save your best heads for Friday afternoon posting?

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  47. JiveKitty (869) Says:

    Also didn’t campaign without party backing because it was costly and she wasn’t anywhere near guaranteed benefit from it. I was shocked when she claimed to have some idea as to reality (“I’m just being realistic really.”), but it seems she’s gained at least a small understanding of the concept since leaving Parliament (not enough that she didn’t make this an issue).

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  48. Hagues (711) Says:

    Jeremy Harris “I really don’t see why she couldn’t stand for an electorate on her own… Why does one need any party behind them, especially in local politics..?”

    Ah Philu has just parroted to you the ‘official’ reason don’t worry you haven’t been outsmarted by him. Have a read of this quote from the article…

    “An independent campaign would have been costly and she did not want to split the Left-wing vote.”

    Typically socialist, wanted someone else to pay her way. Not willing to dip her hand in her own pocket for the campain sounds more likely.

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  49. Hurf Durf (2,860) Says:

    Sue Bwadford has managed to make her herself even more politically toxic than the BNP.

    No sympathy.

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  50. philu (13,393) Says:

    durf…meet hagues…

    ..you could form a moron-cell…eh..?

    phil(whoar.co.nz)

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  51. Manolo (9,857) Says:

    Bradford is a staunch communist, although she claims to have changed her political colours. Toxic as the oil spill, the professional shit-stirrer and bludger finds herself unwanted by her idle ilk. Schadenfreude comes to mind.

    NZ will be much better off without a parasite like Bradford.

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  52. Hurf Durf (2,860) Says:

    Philip, you could clone yourself a hundred times and you’d still be thicker than Mexican Gulf sludge.

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  53. big bruv (11,198) Says:

    Phool

    Why are you so keen on defending Bradford?

    After all, she is the one who shafted you right out of the Green party.

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  54. philu (13,393) Says:

    accuracy…it pisses me off how you morons just make shit up all the time..

    ..and you are one of the main offenders…

    ..and i am able to seperate personality from politics..

    ..why she is really pissed at norman..is that he made a deal with her to roll tanczos…

    ..promised her that if she got her troops/organisational skills out for him..

    ..that he would help/support her to replace fitzsimons…

    ..when that promise-due day came…he reneged on that deal…

    ..politics is dirty…no matter what shade it is…

    (and i must say…that i don’t share your view of poor support for her in ak…

    ..had the greens/labour got behind her as a candidate…she wd likely have got there…

    ..and much as i think andertoon will be a very capable/able mayor for christchurch…

    ….bradford would deliver in local government..

    ..i hope she gets that chance sometime..

    and tho i opposed norman as co-leader…

    ..the political reality is that he is there…

    ..and he is delivering in parliament…

    ..tho’ i do wonder how bradford would have been … holding the blowtorch to keys/englishs’ balls ….

    ..turei is yet to perform in that role…

    phil(whoar.co.nz)

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  55. big bruv (11,198) Says:

    Phool

    You are dreaming if you think that Bradford would have been successful in Auckland, she is, and remains, electoral poison.

    Even the Greens knew this, why do you think that the public never heard from her when it came to election time?, why do you think that the Greens kept her away from any significant role in the election campaign?

    They know how much of a liability she is, every time she opened her mouth she cost them votes.

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  56. reid (13,561) Says:

    ..and given she was one of the most respected mp’s…by other mp’s of all ideological-stripes..

    I like quoting you phil, because I don’t have to type my own elipses…

    I admire Bradford because she is and was a genuine heart-on-sleeve-honest-and-dedicated person and I admire that.

    However, with all due respect, from what I see, as a hard-provable-evidential-rubber-on-the-road-data-not-touchy-feely change agent, she’s done not a lot.

    And that’s not my opinion, that’s what the data says.

    You show me an initiative she has conceived and/or spearheaded that’s lifted even a small let alone a significant proportion of her base out of poverty.

    I can’t see one, but open to be shown. Data only accepted as evidence: e.g. Treasury etc.

    My theory is, this is because despite all the hard work and heart-felt dedication in the world, if you’re tilting at the wrong windmill, you’re on a hiding to nothing.

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  57. Viking2 (9,456) Says:

    Given she was active in an unemployed workers movement?
    Well perhaps she should join the employed workers movement and move in on that other fellow, what’s his name from Epmu. He could then step up and take over the real unions party at Labour and we might get some opposition to this pathetic left fo left on the right of the left not so lefty Govt. we are saddled with. Anything , anything at all to shift these leftie bastards a bit more right.
    Oh hang on they are going to join up for the next election and be known as the Natlab Party for aspiring socialists.

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  58. philu (13,393) Says:

    spoken like a true reactionary/small-town/provincial-type there..obese-sibling…

    ..up here in sophisticated/urban/urbane/bamy/sub-tropical a.k…

    ..we take a far more nuanced view on such matters…

    ..than do you out-landers…

    ..eh..?

    btw..it was sooo hot today….in a.k…

    ..eh..?..)

    phil(whoar.co.nz)

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  59. reid (13,561) Says:

    …er…

    ..eh..?..)

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  60. reid (13,561) Says:

    sorry for the cheap shot phil

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  61. BlairM (2,018) Says:

    The issue was never one of her electability. I’m sure Bradford could get elected in a blue collar ward out West. This was all about Len Brown throwing her under the bus, and the people who want a Left Wing mayor. Imagining I was a filthy commie swine, I’m not sure the strategy is a good one. Sue Bradford is one of the most effective Left Wing politicians in New Zealand’s history. Were I commie scum, I’d much rather have her on the council making mischief than have someone insipid like Len Brown as mayor.

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  62. angie stone (53) Says:

    yawn…Sue darling, just get over yourself. This woman has the gift of fantasy.

    Here’s why, when Mellissa Lee was voted one of the most good looking politicians in the world do you know that Sue said something to the effect of:”I don’t see why she’s the only female politician in NZ to get the vote, there are many (of us) good looking dames in NZ parliament”

    I know kids are taught confidence, but clearly Sue got more than an overdose of overconfidence.

    Go grow some potatoes Sue.

    http://www.angel-charlene.com

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  63. Muzza M (267) Says:

    Sue Bradford please just fuck off.

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