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The day in politics

by Whaleoil on January 31, 2011

A very interesting day in politics.

National’s candidate Jami-lee Ross has covered the electorate in his bill boards. Driving around it is a sea of blue. I haven’t seen a single Labour sign anywhere. Perhaps Labour needs to borrow Conor Roberts to get their campaign off the ground.

Matthew Hooton on Radio Live today at 12:30 is pretty certain that Hone Harawira is bolting to form the new left wing party with Sue Bradford as co-leader.

Bomber of course is wetting his pants at the prospect, though I am not sure the electorate in general is going to be too happy at the prospect of seeing Sue Bradford’s face back on the public teat. iPredict, meanwhile is showing a surge in the likelihood that such a party will be formed.

Still in a democracy it is a contest of ideas and with Hone Harawira holding his seat and the new left wing party grabbing 3-4% and stealing 5 seats the next parliament could well be very interesting.

But for Labour to govern they would still need Winston Peters to make a come back, completing the spectre of the evil left. There is a slight problem with that however and the rise of the new left party. My deep throat spies in NZ First tell me that Winston’s strategy is all hard right.

Could Winston Peters be making a play for the Act party’s neglected members. My understanding is that Winston will make his play on three core policies that will attract the FU vote. But at least one of those platforms is going to put him in direct conflict with a prospective coalition partner that features Sue Bradford.

One of NZ First’s major policy planks will be to campaign to reverse the anti-smacking law. They hope to hoover up the constituency that John Key ignored when bypassing the wishes of nearly 90% of the population. Winston only needs to pick up a few per cent out of those opposed to Bradford’s bill and he is a shoe in again. The problem though is that in campaigning on such a platform will he then chuck it in to form a coalition with Bradford’s new left party and Labour?

Winston at least will for once be acting with some consistency as he voted against Bradford’s bill in 2007. What are his other two major platforms? Well that is a secret for now but rest assured this blog will release them shortly. Suffice to say the policies are more hard right than anything remotely close to a party that will include Hone Harawira, Sue Bradford and Matt McCarten.

Meanwhile Duncan Garner is blogging that Ruth Dyson is a goner in Phil Goff’s line up. One wonders if Goff should stop at stabbing only Dyson. He will however have to watch out for her retribution as that is now nigh on guaranteed. Ask any Labour insider and they will tell you that Dyson is the most spiteful, even evil, person in caucus.

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  • http://zerorocketlaunchers.blogspot.com/ Mr. Infinity

    A new leftist party that far to the left (and this is like, socialism on steriods) is only going to take votes from Labour and Greens. It’s no threat to National. The man stuck in a 1930s shipyard, the black racist, and the creature from the commie lagoon…seems like a nice mix of rational, reasonable people.

    Winston remains the joker in the pack, however. If he gets in Key’s toast in my mind. Even if he goes hard right with his social policy, doesn’t change the fact that he’s got the economic policy of…well…a Muldoon era politician. Spend, spend, spend, and worry about the debt later.

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  • Graeme Edgeler

    Winston might be consistent in campaigning against the smacking law, but New Zealand First won’t be – they voted 4-3 in favour.

    • http://whaleoil.gotcha.co.nz Whaleoil

      Graeme, they will. Mark my words…the excuses will go something like this….”We were wrong, we should have listened, but now you have a chance to get us to fix the problem”.

  • illalwaysrememberportugal

    Far left-wing party?? Please God no. MMP needs to go. I’ll end it there.

  • jabba

    oh no, not Ruth

  • whalewatcher

    sad old tired has-beens, still thinking they’re current and relevant:-

    Sue Bradford – who needs someone that can think up an entity such as the ‘Unemployed Workers’ Union’? Now there is an oxymoron if ever I heard of one

    Dyson – nasty old Helenite who drink-drove whilst a cabinet minister, yet was put back in. Bye-bye, Ruthy

    And if the next Govt tries to screw more income tax out of me I will take my hard-earned skills and 6 figure income elsewhere.
    Probably Oz. In my game, the dollars are already higher there, but I love NZ.
    However, there comes a point…
    Winston – just go away and leave us all alone you nasty, one-trick racist old git. F off. GO

    • whafe

      With you on that whalewatcher, I am not giving anymore of my tax dollar away..

      It seems that the vast majority of parties need to have a clean out, get rid of all the career politicians, those that havnt changed with the times etc etc… We would virtually have no politicians… Yeah ha on that…

      • mediatart

        career politicians ?
        So you wont be supporting Jami-Lee Ross then . Basically been a paid politician since 21 and now moving up to the national level, higher salary, better perks.
        And Whale supports him to the hilt ! Go figure

        • http://zerorocketlaunchers.blogspot.com/ Mr. Infinity

          4 years of politics is not a career politician, ‘tart. 20 is. 30 defiantly is.

          Who’s to say Ross won’t quit politics when he’s 35 and go do something else? As a (future) National party MP he likely has skills applicable in the real world, unlike the talentless Cullen, Clark, Goff, Mallard, Dyson, King, Chadwick, Parker, etc.

          Does being a brainless leftwinger give you the ability to see into the future now? Gee, I knew the left had it’s head far up its own ass but wow…

          • http://zerorocketlaunchers.blogspot.com/ Mr. Infinity

            That actually brings me to something I’ve been thinking about for a long time. Could we implement term limits on MPs? Like three terms for a seat MP, two for a list? It might cause some problems with PMs having to disappear after 1 year in charge, but with some sharper minds that I working on it, I think we could do it.

          • grizz

            You forgot Diane Yeates. Tried to tell everyone that she was derserving of a job in the food industry as she was from the Waikato and Waikato produces a lot of food. Somehow skills are just telegraphically transferred.

  • grizz

    Harawira jumping ship may actually reduce overhang. While he may win his electorate seat, most of his voters will probably give their vote to the Maori Party, rather than to the Labour Party.

    However I feel the Greens will be the most threatened. To vote for Bradford you have to be willing to vote for a left wing 3rd party and in the last election most of these votes went to the Greens. But yes, Winston and Sue working together will be interesting.