Even more strangely the Left continue to accuse John Key of disception about assets sales, as if it was some awful secret being sprung on people. It is in fact a promise being kept. Just about everything National has done, it campaigned on.

..sustainability begins at home.

http://publicaddress.net/system/cafe/speaker-what-diversity-dividend/?i=25#replies

Many Nats are frustrated with his refusal to blame everything on Labour eg Chris Carter signing us up for Novopay but he knows this strategy makes him look stronger and in charge.

That’s a pefect example, Bea. What politician in living memory (even including Clark) has resisted the temptation to do that? Not a one. But Key does and you’re right, he does so for a very calculated and strategic reason which would seem counter-intuitive to someone whose instincts were not as refined (i.e. almost everyone else in politics).

Yet I recall journos fawning over Micael Lhaws saying what a great strategist he was (a claim he thought enough of himself to write a book extolling, since no one else would), yet look what he did when he inherited NZF – plunged it from 30 to 13 percent by election day 1996 and thence to 3 percent before he jumped ship. And blamed Winston for the whole mess.

I rarely see a journo writing similar things about Key, yet his mastery of the dark arts of politics is rarely seen anywhere. It’s not a comparison he’d appreciate, but the nearest I can bring to mind is Bill Clinton, the similarity being that an intelligent and agile mind managed to project an “Aw, shucks” sincerity to voters much less intelligent than himself. You saw exactly the Clinton he wanted you to see: policy wonks got a policy wonk, Republicans got a President willing to stare them down over a government shutdown, Southerners got a good ol’ boy, and so on…

Unfortunately MMP will see a Labour/Greenpeace/Winston/Mana alliance in 2014.

What an absolute load of BOLLAX. If you can’t sell your Party, and you have BS policy anyone with half a brain would not
vote for Labour/Greens. You would have to be nuts. John Key is safe.

B Edwards et al slag off the blogeration for it’s lack of reasoned argument and deployment of the ad hom, but the reality is that the blogeration is quite capable of getting to the point and encapsulating Shearer’s shortcomings in a far more efficient manner that doesn’t require the reader to trawl through a pointless reminder of information that already exists in the public arena, or of conclusions that are self-evident having regard to that information. Ergo, “Shearer is a tool” is a more than effcient substitute for Edwards’ chest puffing exercise and is a conclusion readily comprehensible to the assembled masses that doesn’t require any persistence in dredging through Edwards’ exercise in self flagellation.

Edwards, if he felt compelled to opine on the subject, could merely have said: “BTW, here is yet another example of Shearer being a tool”. Eager readers yet to be convinced of that fact, would then have had an opportunity to read on with bated breath, whilst those who require no further evidence might merely prefer to continue about their business.

Along with his “cheap houses for all!”.

Kiwibuild is not that generous, it is cheap houses for those that win Labour’s new house lottery (or new box in block if in Auckland).

I don’t think Shearer stands a chance up against Key – and I think Shearer knows it only too well but his ego wouldn’t let him turn down being leader of the opposition.

And there’s been a lot of talk abour exactly that on the left for some time, they dread muddling through to the campaign next year protecting Shearer as much as possible from unscripted media, and then Key annihiliating him in the debates.

Some of thee same people thought Goff improved markedly for the 2011 campaign. I disagree with that, he wasn’t as bad as Shearer but he was famously caught short on knowledge (“Show me the money!”) and (to a lesser extent than Shearer) he often looked like his heart wasn’t in his words.

Goff was simply a more accomplished reciter than Shearer. And he wasn’t the only one, that’s how David Clark campaigned too (and David Parker?), except he looked like he believed what he’d been told to say.

Of course, he has absolutely no idea at all where the money is going to come from to pay for all this State-supplied food and housing.

Ta very much Helen.

The cheque is on its way.

Signed
David Cunliffe.

John Key put on an excellent performance today. David Shearer was absolutely hopeless, and definitely not Leadership material.

Alas you mistake a contest between wannabe stand up comedians as an example of solid political discourse and the one who delivers the best oneliners as exhibiting leadership.

D’ya think if my kids in Australia were to have seen that that they’d be suddenly inspired to move back here to build their futures and raise families?

I don’t think Shearer stands a chance up against Key – and I think Shearer knows it only too well but his ego wouldn’t let him turn down being leader of the opposition.

John Key put on an excellent performance today. David Shearer was absolutely hopeless, and definitely not Leadership material.

While Key did basically just deliver a refresher of what he and National have announced and talked about for years, what he announced more recently in his State of the Nation speech, and besides of that did all to ridicule and criticise and blame Labour (for NZ’s difficult challenges), Key did not appear to be the tired man he was for much of late last year. He seems to have prepared himself for a busy and challenging parliamentary year in 2013.

Shearer was trying oratory, looked wooden, did not convince me and others much, and he repeated, rather in defensive modes, what Labour would do and offer in housing, training of youth and so on. Yet there was nothing new, no announcements of what Labour will offer for an alternative, and more deflection and endless criticism of National.

I feel the Nats had their days, and they deserve to go sooner than later, but for Labour to form a competent, convincing alternative government, likely to depend on the Greens (and others), Shearer must go! He will only cost Labour too much. Like him a few old heads in caucus need to roll, and a refreshed party must be presented.

For Labour the time has come, to cut out dead wood, and the time is now, or they will soon be overtaken by the Greens, or perhaps even, by a newly founded, more inclusive, competent, freshly organised and staffed party to the left of centre. I see this time to be extremely fertile a chance for creating and establishing a completely new party, which could be joined by progressive, inclusive, fair minded, intelligent and competent new faces, and they would instantly get 20 plus per cent next election, no problem!