Long on Muldoon
September 7th, 2011 at 10:00 am by David FarrarRichard Long writes on Bryan Gould’s comparison of John Key to Muldoon:
Jetlag is bad enough, but returning to headlines about Rob Muldoon last week was completely destabilising. I thought I’d been transported back a few decades.
Part of this was publicity over the Bats theatre play portraying the former Prime Minister as the most evil leader we have ever had. As one who suffered under his idiosyncrasies (banned from his press conferences at times; fingered to this newspaper’s chairman of directors as someone who should be fired) even I felt this was a bit over the top.
Could you imagine a politician today getting away with banning journalists and lobbying to get them sacked.
As for Bryan Gould, we can only assume that the political scene in New Zealand is a huge disappointment. It has to be remembered that Mr Gould was on the Left of the old British Labour Party in the days when many clung to the credo of nationalising the means of production, distribution and exchange.
About the only thing to the Left of British Labour then was the Soviet bloc, the Cubans and the maniacs in North Korea. Mr Gould, tipped as leadership material, lost out because he was too far to the Left of the British Left!
Instead of emigrating to North Korea, he then returned to New Zealand where life must have been a series of disappointments: Roger Douglas’ economic reforms; Ruth Richardson’s mother of all budgets; and now a former international money trader riding a phenomenal wave of electorate approval even as he prepares to prop up a massive Budget deficit by selling state assets and boosting mining and oil exploration.
Life must be very tough for poor Bryan as his socialist nirvana remains a distant dream.
Mr Gould lamented that Mr Key was a commentator on everything – national leader, moral guide, social commentator, sports journalist, pub drinking companion, comedian and was always on the news bulletins.
Yes, for two reasons: the electorate wants to hear his views and Mr Key has this disarming style of answering questions that are delivered his way, even when, at times, he probably should not.
I suspect his staff would rather he sometimes uses the phrase “no comment”.
My favourite, at a time when inflation was hitting 18 per cent, was the fallout to the question on whether he had a policy to deal with inflation. Of course he did, Muldoon responded, but he would not say what it was.
Next day’s front-page report that he had a secret new policy left Muldoon furious. The result was the ill-fated wages-prices freeze – a final straw for many Nats.
The late Treasury Secretary Bernie Galvin grumpily confided to me some time afterwards that officials had managed to talk Muldoon down from the madness of a wages-prices freeze till that report drove him into a corner.
So the media are to blame for the wage and price freeze 
Related posts:
- Labour calls for Muldoon rent freeze in Christchurch
- Boag on Muldoon
- NZ First wanting Muldoon rent freeze
- Muldoon and Shrek
September 7th, 2011 at 10:16 am
Just to play devils advocate, if one were to impose a wage and price freeze *as well as rationing*, then wouldn’t the outcome be a simple scarcity of goods.
I maintain that Muldoon’s missing ingredient was rationing.
Not that I advocate these measures…..
Vote:September 7th, 2011 at 10:26 am
Could you imagine a politician today getting away with banning journalists and lobbying to get them sacked.
Yes that would be the Oz PM Julia Gillard.
Vote:September 7th, 2011 at 10:27 am
I thought Michele Boag’s piece was a good demolition of Gould…but Long’s is just as good in his own way….
the British Labour party had God knows how many years in oppostion because of the policies that Gould represents…great comment from Long about the only people to the left of the Gould era Labour party were the Soviets, the Cubans and the maniacs in North Korea…
Vote:September 7th, 2011 at 10:28 am
“Could you imagine a politician today getting away with banning journalists and lobbying to get them sacked.”
Yes, her name was Helen Klark.
Vote:September 7th, 2011 at 10:48 am
>Could you imagine a politician today getting away with banning journalists and lobbying to get them sacked.
Yes. This one: http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/tv-and-radio/abc-dumps-milne-from-insiders-20110903-1jrsa.html#ixzz1Wv2ROXTp
Briefly… Journalist writes newspaper column about PM, who used to live with a union official who stole a million bucks from his own union and used to exort money from business with threats of strikes if they didn’t pay up. PM personally rings newspaper editors. Newspaper owned by the same media company that the PM has been recently threatening with an inquiry about media ownership. Newspaper withdraws column. PM personally rings government owned TV company. TV company sacks journalist.
Vote:September 7th, 2011 at 11:11 am
And a black market. Criminal activity. Subjugation of citizens to both the power of the State (read: bureaucrats) and the power of the thug.
All good things.
You could force people to produce at the lower prices. This would simply require the State to control the means of production. Yeah, simple solutions for a simple problem.
Vote:September 7th, 2011 at 11:51 am
Kimble – “Yeah, simple solutions for a simple problem.”
Ha! Well said. I’m inclined to agree.
Vote:September 7th, 2011 at 12:07 pm
Gould’s article was an elegantly written hatchet job pure and simple, but a hatchet job dripping in poison nevertheless. For those NZers who remember Muldoon as a PM would not recognise the comparison. All PMs dominate their cabinet. If Gould wanted a comparison he should have tried Sir Keith Holyoake, but that would not have suited his spiteful purpose.
Vote:September 7th, 2011 at 12:25 pm
Interesting that the Herald failed to identify Gould’s far Left Labour background. He jumped ship too early allowing Tony Blair in. He could write an article about how the world might have been different with him as UK PM. He’s good at fiction.
Vote:September 7th, 2011 at 12:27 pm
One of the biggest differences between Key and Mudoon is experience. Muldoon entered parliament in 1960 and did a few terms before he became Prime Minister. Key, on the other hand, is one of the most inexperienced PM’s in living memory. And it shows.
Vote:September 7th, 2011 at 12:28 pm
Why do all the Pommie nutbars keep flying our way?
Vote:September 7th, 2011 at 12:30 pm
@ross
Vote:Yea, JK so bad nobody supports him.. no.. wait
September 7th, 2011 at 12:35 pm
Lance, of course people support Key. But you confuse support with competence. By your logic, every electorate MP must be competent because they’ve been voted into office.
Vote:September 7th, 2011 at 12:41 pm
Sadly Gould is not a pom….just a f…wit who lived there for a long time….and achieved nothing
Vote:September 7th, 2011 at 12:59 pm
I don’t agree with Gould’s political ideals, but I hardly think using them as an ad hom attack to debunk his valid observation that Key seems to get a fucking easy ride because he’s ‘nice’ is appropriate.
Vote:September 7th, 2011 at 1:17 pm
“but I hardly think using them as an ad hom attack to debunk his valid observation that Key seems to get a fucking easy ride because he’s ‘nice’ is appropriate.”
The problem with Gould’s crap is that he did not simply say “Key seems to get a fucking easy ride because he’s ‘nice’”. If thats all he had said we would not be having this discussion. The issue is that he deliberarely compared him to Muldoon, a comparison that is not only absurd, it is gutter level socialist propaganda.
Gould is a failed has-been still wedded to the most murderous and genocidal ideology in human history. Shame on the Herald for employing him.
Vote:September 7th, 2011 at 1:38 pm
Re: The Prime Minister having “a secret plan to fight inflation”… sounds remarkably like a West Wing episode (season 1 I think), when deputy communications director Joshua Lyman steps up to the podium in front of the White House press corps and takes a nosedive under pressure. That show is so accurate about politics some times it is scary.
Vote:September 7th, 2011 at 4:36 pm
I wouldn’t give this fuckwit Gould the time of day . When he was vice-chancellor at waikato uni he was not well thought of at all.
Vote:Just a stuckup git who never ventured out of his ivory tower. Never achieved anything of note during his time there.