John Armstrong

Had to laugh at Mike Smith’s piece on Lynn Prentice’s hate speech blog the Standard at the weekend when he unveiled his new bromance with John Armstrong from the Herald:

Armstrong comments that  “in terms of ideological renewal and momentum, Labour is starting to get it right.”  I agree

It was almost exactly a year ago the same Mike Smith was calling John Armstrong a right wing stooge:

“Armstrong’s faux outrage”… ”Armstrong’s article is crap”… ”He gets tangled in his own overblown rhetoric”

With John Armstrong and Annette King both convinced Labour can deliver cheap high density housing, things are looking good for David Shearer this February.  Now, as discussed before, containers are out.  And pallet housing may also not hold the answer.

How about this then?

John Armstrong, in yesterday’s Herald, was surely taking the piss in waxing lyrical about Labour hopeless housing policy.

Titled “Labour starts to put its houses in order” he goes on about how Labour’s new policy will solve all the housing problems, and includes such gems as;

“Labour’s policy is being written by no less than the formidable Annette King, who holds the shadow housing portfolio”

and

“She says the high section prices in Auckland could result in Labour promoting mixed housing developments in which the more expensive homes would cross-subsidise the ones meeting the affordability criteria”.

I kid you not – this proves yet again why beltway journalists should be slapped every time they talk about Auckland from their ivory towers in Wellington. The problem with Wellington based people is they think that suburbs are like Wellington, buried on their own with definable boundaries in little valleys and gullies. The main problem though with that stupid idea of Annette King’s is that the house will not remain affordable…which surely is the whole point of an affordable homes policy…instead it will create windfall gains for whom-ever is lucky enough to have been able to buy their subsidised house.

One of the funniest things Armstrong says is;

“Lastly, the target of 100,000 new homes over 10 years is the kind of promise which only one of the two main parties can make with any certainty it will be fulfilled.”

ROFL. As of 9pm last night there have been no comments published – probably we are all checking it’s not 1 April yet.

I don’t know what John Armstrong has been taking but he is clearly drinking the Labour party Kool Aid on this one…he is normally better than that.

This story from John Armstrong brought back memories…

An angry David Shearer intends to confront the threat to his leadership by telling David Cunliffe this week to put up or shut up regarding a challenge to his job.

First memory:
Just yesterday David Shearer was telling us Cunliffe was on totally board.

He refused to say whether Cunliffe would be disciplined for refusing to rule out a challenge and insisted he had no reason to doubt Cunliffe’s loyalty.

“He gave me his loyalty last week . . . I can only take him on his word.”

Second memory:
Bill English tried something similar with Don Brash.  Note to Shearer – make sure your numbers man can count. (Don’t use Farrar)

Third memory:
Banishing Maurice Williamson to the back bench for white-anting the leader worked for Bill English – Not.

Fourth memory:

So according to Shearer – those asking questions about his leadership like Duncan Garner, John Armstrong, Andrea Vance, Vernon Small, Tapu Misa are “basically people who are sitting in front of their computers giving their opinions“.

Good luck with the head in the sand approach Dave. It is bad enough that Bryce Edwards managed to scratch up 33 links to blogs and media talking about Shearer’s doomed leadership but now with comments like that he has ensured another day or two of bad headlines in the lead up to the conference.

We must be just days away from a 10 minute video from TV3 of all the umms and ahhs and re-cuts of questions from Shearer.

You don’t slag off media like that and get away with it.

John Armstrong makes an interesting observation and nearly asks the right question:

In its most damning criticism, the Commission says Wilkinson’s department should have prohibited Pike from operating the mine until its health and safety systems were adequate.

Given the mine opened in November 2008 – just a month before Wilkinson became Minister of Labour – there would have been demands for her resignation as her department’s woeful performance happened on her watch.

Farrar has gone all soft on this:

The Minister, when it did start operating, was Trevor Mallard - not Kate Wilkinson.

Now I say this not do do a blame game. I don’t think either Mallard or Wilkinson are to blame.

Chris Carter consented the mine with all of the silly provisions that ultimately led to the disaster, but Trevor Mallard and Ruth Dyson before him were the ministers responsible for the safety aspects during the construction of the mine.

If as Armstrong contends that the mine should never have opened, then it stands to reason that those most responsible for it being in a position to open should be held accountable like Kate Wilkinson.

If David Shearer is true to his word that Labour must share the blame, then he too must hold those in Labour who were responsible accountable. They cannot resign ministerial portfolios but they can resign from parliament. It is the right thing to do.

With John Armstrong’s column and comments from Fran O’Sullivan (who was once famously described as a right-wing blogger by Helen Clark) I’d like to ask readers a series of questions.

1. Should I compile a Daily Politics post, with some short commentary on the issues of the day in competition to Bryce Edwards?

2. If yes, then what format/design/style/focus should it take…should it include a wide range of links like his…but with more balance etc?

3. Morning or Afternoon?

4. Would you subscribe to it, and/or sponsor it?

After all time is money, and to compile links and write a summary would consume a large amount of time that could otherwise be productive in smashing pinkos.

5. Volunteer to provide parts of the Daily Politics post as a contributor, flagging and identifying useful links both domestic and internationally?

I ask this question because Bryce has staff…university flunkies, clearly of the same political persuasion as him, compiling his links.

6. Include international politics? If so which countries…I’m thinking UK, Australia, Pacific and US mostly with interesting titbits  that pop up from time to time. I am finding the distinct lack of coverage of the US elections in our papers somewhat frustrating…and reporting on Fiji is dreadful universally by the MSM in New Zealand.

I welcome your collective wisdom.

John Armstrong has a hard hitting column on, actually, it is on left wing bloggers:

Here is a blunt message for a couple of old-school Aro Valley-style socialists:

Get off our backs. Stop behaving like a pair of tut-tutting old dowagers gossiping in the salons. In short, stop making blinkered, cheap-shot accusations of the kind you made this week – that the media who went with John Key to Vladivostok and Tokyo concentrated on trivia, interviewed their laptops and parroted Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet press releases. …

Do the likes of former Listener columnist and Greens propagandist Gordon Campbell and former Alliance staffer and now Otago University politics lecturer Bryce Edwards have the faintest idea of the difficulties, obstacles and logistics of reporting an overseas trip by a prime minister, especially one which incorporates a major international forum like Apec?

Does it occur to them to actually pick up the phone and try to talk to those journalists about what is happening and why things are being reported in a certain way?

Of course not. That would risk the facts getting in the way of, well … interviewing their laptops and having yet another ritual poke at the parliamentary press gallery.

To read their drivel while stuck in a Tokyo traffic jam with your deadline approaching faster than a Japanese bullet-train makes your heart sink. …

But never mind. The rules that apply to journalists in terms of accuracy do not apply to Campbell and his echo chamber Dr Edwards – who is not be confused with Dr Brian Edwards, another blogger, but a far more original one when it comes to ideas and analysis.

Bloggers can blog when they like at what length they wish. Admittedly, they are normally not being paid for the privilege. Journalists are. But on a trip like last week’s one, the hourly rate slumps drastically by virtue of the hours worked.

Few media representatives travelling with John Key would have got more than four or five hours’ sleep each night – probably less – because of the Prime Minister’s schedule, which ran from 6am (earlier if a flight was involved) until well into the evening.

Days were spent clambering on and off buses in 35C heat and 100 per cent humidity.

Time has to be found within that schedule to write news stories and other articles – but not just for the following day’s newspaper. News organisation’s websites have to fed – especially if there is “breaking” news.

Deadlines in Asia are punishing, as countries such as Japan are three hours behind New Zealand, meaning deadlines are effectively even tighter.

Then there is the no small matter of filing stories back home. Equipment breaks down, mobile phones that are supposed to be in harmony with Japan’s system turn out not to be.

To Campbell’s credit, he does do his own digging. He is also a regular attendee at the Prime Minister’s weekly press conference. His blog is one of the more valuable. But he does have a blind spot with regards to the press gallery.

The rapidly growing influence of Edwards’ blog was initially down to its being an exhaustive wrap-up of all of the day’s political news. It is now starting to develop a much more political dynamic that is unlikely to please National.

Edwards’ blog is the extreme example of the fact that most blogsites rely on the mainstream media for their information and then use that information to criticise the media for not stressing something enough or deliberately hiding it.

Unlike the mainstream media, the blogs are not subject to accuracy or taste – and sometimes even the law.

It is the ultimate parasitical relationship. And it will not change until the media start charging for use of their material.

He is mostly taking issue with the left wing bias and cant of Bryce Edwards who has a Political Daily column in the Herald and NBR….but is mostly written from the perspective of his dark red view of the world and certainly the compilation of links is mostly a who’s who of left wing and far left wing links. Pretty much the only right wing, and I use the term loosely, blog links he uses are to Kiwiblog.

I pretty much don;t read Bryce’s emails or columns anymore such is the predicatbility of his slant and tirades against the government and in that I agree with John Armstrong.

However there is a symbiotic relationship with bloggers and journalists. As I said on Fran O’Sullivan’s Facebook when discussing this:

In general I agree with JA but then again politicians don’t invite bloggers on their trips so we have to rely on the MSM…likewise we can’t join the gallery either because we aren’t “proper” journalists…it is a closed shop worse than the Maritime Union in the ports of Auckland.

Politicians and journalists use bloggers relentlessly, they talk to us and use our digging to supplement their stories, often without attribution and certainly without payment. If the MSM wants to charge for news then they best source it themselves rather than pick things of my Twitter stream  or my posts.

In most instances though I am not providing news and do not even pretend to to claim that…I provide commentary, a view, a contrast to the subtle and sometimes overt views of journalists and other commentators…I have developed an audience and I have nurtured a base…I have had to because unlike journalists who take home a nice salary I have to struggle for every bit of coin I can come across.

ᔥ NZ Herald

John Armstrong writes about David Shearer’s horror week:

If there were any lingering doubts about whether David Shearer’s political honeymoon is finally over, they were expunged by what has been little short of the week from hell for the Labour leader.

Two opinion polls last Sunday contained morale-sapping rebuffs for Labour with the gains the party was confident it had made on National since last year’s election seemingly melting away.

Thankfully the Roy Morgan poll came out last night and cooled down the willingness of caucus to knife him. God forbid Labour changes to someone else.

The biggest killer of a party is ill-disipline.

In a clear breach of Labour caucus protocol to keep arguments in-house, the party’s Mangere MP Su’a William Sio then publicly bagged the gay marriage bill sponsored by his neighbouring MP and colleague Louisa Wall as likely to cost Labour heaps of votes in south Auckland.

That was quickly followed by the surfacing of apparent renewed hostility in some quarters of the caucus towards David Cunliffe, who lost out to Shearer in last December’s contest for the leadership.

The off-the-record remarks of a couple of unnamed senior MPs carried on TV3′s website produced a feeding frenzy on the political blogs, leaving Labour activists deeply disturbed the party was again doing its dirty washing in public but confused as to whether Cunliffe, who has been on holiday overseas, was actually mounting a coup against Shearer.

Cunliffe isn’t mounting a coup. You can’t charge forward with zero back up. The EPMU is locked in behind Shearer for some reason, probably because they see him as a seat warmer for Little. It is Robertson that Shearer should watch out for.

What is not in question is that the ructions completely overshadowed Shearer’s midweek launch of a sustained campaign by Labour to win back the “heartland” – the provincial cities and towns where elections are won and lost.

The launch was the culmination of weeks of careful planning and extensive research by Shearer’s already-stretched staff. Copious amounts of official data were collected and collated to measure the progress in every region – or rather the lack of it – across a number of economic and social indicators following more than three years of a National Administration.

Labour is hoping the material will jolt voters out of their seeming sense of resignation that while things are not that crash hot in economic terms, they could be a lot worse and it is better to stick to the status quo.

It is bizarre that Shearer is tourin National’s heartland. And Armstrong is wrong about where elections are won and lost…that is in Auckland.

Leaders of the Opposition are always hostage to the polls. The very real danger for Shearer is that repetition of the results of last Sunday’s polls will see the “Mr Invisible” title becoming impossible for him to shake off.

Other unsuccessful Leaders of the Opposition – Bill Rowling, Jim McLay and Bill English – were handicapped by their intellect and reasonableness which made it difficult for them to find fault with everything their opponent said or did.

The net result of that syndrome is the leader suddenly finds himself or herself less than 100 per cent confident of his or her own party’s policy or position. The doubt is immediately apparent in hesitation in the leader’s voice and visible in his or her body language, all of which is conveyed in cruel detail by television which demands and gets instant judgement from the watching voter.

The thankless job of Leader of the Opposition requires seeing everything in black and white terms and delivering simple, short and very direct messages.

Shearer knows that. But Labour has a tendency to overcomplicate things. Shearer needs to take a few risks to avoid being stereotyped likewise. He must hammer a few stakes in the ground, some of which will not be always to his party’s liking.

He has already copped criticism from within for a recent speech attacking those on welfare who are not “pulling their weight” and are “ripping off the system”.

Shearer’s play at being Act leader, or even trying out for Paula Bennett’s replacement has angered Labour’s based who think bludgers can do no wrong and need to be showered with cash. However his major problem is precisely what Armstrong says…that he is perceieved…no not as the case may be, as the Invisible Man.

Labour are in terrible trouble. Let’s see what happens next week to further salt the wounds.

ᔥ NZ Herald

John Armstrong says that the lack of protest shows the government can re-find its testicles:

National’s annual conference was not short of protests. But the protests were embarrassingly short of protesters.

Contrary to the impression given by some accounts, the 400 or so party faithful did not spend their weekend cowering inside Auckland’s SkyCity Convention Centre behind a not-so-thin blue line of police.

The police showed up in significant number; the protesters did not. Yesterday morning’s all-comers rally against everything National stands for drew a total of 79 people – it may well have been counter-productive.

It was incredibly counter-productive…the protests can be safely scoffed at…there isn’t the mass outrage that Labour and the Greens have claimed…in fact Labour MPs at the weekend were rather more pointedly worried about the launch of a catamaran or actually staying at SkyCity when the National Party conference was underway, rather than manning the protest frontlines. One MP even thought harassing people enjoying the footy was better than actually protesting.

John Key and his senior ministers will take the paucity of protesters as confirming National is on side with majority public opinion in pushing ahead with controversial policies such as more welfare reform and much more oil and mineral exploration.

National believes – or rather its polling is telling it – that most voters are now desperately hungry for serious economic growth. The environment has become very much a secondary concern.

Absolutely…Nation needs to adopt the mantra of Mine it, Drill it, Sell it.