Sue Bradford

Larry Williams is not impressed with the rent-a-mob scum who spat at and abused business leaders attending a budget briefing today.

What a shambles.  What a disgrace.

Labour’s circular firing squad reveals many things about the state of that party.  Firstly it reveals a lack of character on the part of its leader, a man incapable of leading by example, by stature, or by design.  Secondly it reveals a lack of cohesion between the caucus and its wider constituent bodies.  Thirdly it reveals the jealousies that exist at all levels of the party.

Shearer’s ritual dismissal of Cunliffe is not a new strategy.  Shearer and his lieutenants Trevor Mallard and David Parker have taken a leaf out of Julia Gillard’s book.  When faced with destabilisation from Kevin Rudd, Gillard wheeled out her caucus surrogates to denounce Rudd as a demagogue unfit to lead his party or his country.  Whereas Gillard had Wayne Swan, Simon Crean and Nicola Roxon, Shearer had Hipkins and Faafoi front the media to denounce Cunliffe as a destabilising force within the caucus.

Next Shearer demanded endorsement at the point of a gun, no debate, no dissent.  Having achieved ‘unanimous’ endorsement from his colleague, Shearer then dismissed Cunliffe to the back bench.  In effect Cunliffe is now the excuse for low opinion polls, a man who is to serve as toilet paper for Shearer’s failed leadership, languishing at the bottom of the Labour Party’s political long-drop.

The problem with this scenario however is Cunliffe alone is not to blame.  Labour has yet to move to a level of political support it realised when it lost office in 2008.  This is extraordinary.  Students of history will know Bill Rowling lost the 1975 election, but outpolled Robert Muldoon in 1978.  Mike Moore led Labour to a landslide defeat in 1990, but he came within one seat of winning in 1993.

Shearer leads a party approaching its fifth year in opposition and he shows no sign of leading a recovery.  Relying of a coalition of friends based on Russel Norman and Hone Harawira is a declaration of defeat, the conclusion of a failure of leadership that he Shearer’s responsibility and Shearer’s alone.

The leader of the Labour Party is incompetent, mangles his words, struggles with basic policy concepts, and has little or no feel for human behaviour.  How does he expect his diminishing band of party members to raise money and knock on doors when he has just thrown their preferred candidate for leader under the wheel of a bus?

And Shearer need not think his so-called KiwiBuild policy will make a blind bit of difference.  Communism-meets-lotto housing based on cheap homes situated on cheap land around train stations is hardly going to motivated 200,000 mortgage-paying voters to switch their party vote from National to Labour.

Cunliffe is no better off today than he was last week.  Yes he has been demoted off the front bench, but in a caucus of 34 led by David Shearer, it was never likely that Cunliffe was going to feature in a government any time soon.  Once Shearer accommodates Norman, Turei, Harawira, Sue Bradford, and a mandatory quota of feminist unionists and others from the Rainbow sector, what role would a white heterosexual male possibly have in a future Labour-led government?

However Cunliffe alone deserves the odium that he is coping.  A weak-kneed to Shearer’s ultimatum is a disappointing end.  Yes, Cunliffe should not have hedged at the weekend conference; the smart thing would have been to publicly endorse Shearer there and then.  But having been called on to front up, Cunliffe should have done just that and tested the resolve of the Labour caucus.  Having lost, he could have then resigned and moved to the back bench rather than being dumped by a political featherweight.

Cunliffe has been unwise to rely upon the likes of Charles Chauvel, Moana Mackey and Louisa Wall.  None of his core supporters represent the aspirations of mortgageville New Zealand, and none of them were likely to have the fortitude to go through the fire on behalf of their candidate.

Cunliffe is a vain and flawed man, and someone who is deserves to be disliked by his colleagues.  But Shearer is ten times worse, a leader who seeks strategic direction from Trevor Mallard.

Well might Labour members throw up their hands in horror.  As John Key rightly points out, how can they run the country if they can’t even run a conference?

The correct response now is for Labour’s rank and file to force all MPs to face selection contests.  A contest of ideas is the only way to force its caucus to align with the party that carries it.

Seriously good idea from the cops:

Greek authorities have launched an investigation into allegations that riot police used a female protester as a human shield during demonstrations over a visit to Athens by the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, this week.

Witnesses said the young woman, who has yet to be identified, was frogmarched in handcuffs ahead of riot police as protesters threw stones at officers.

Magistrates have launched a separate inquiry into a report that protesters arrested after clashing with supporters of the neo-nazi Golden Dawn party were tortured at the Attica General Police Directorate. Human Rights Watch said accountability for police abuse was urgently needed.

The group said: “The scenes described by the victims to reporters are deeply shocking. No one should be treated that way by police. Greece needs to conduct a thorough and impartial investigation of their allegations.”

Sue Bradford protesting for the poor (with an iPad of course).

On Friday night One News was frothing about upcoming ”fireworks” from protestors at the National party conference and the promise of “boisterous rallies”.

On Saturday night, they continued to rark things up and were visibly licking their lips at the mention of anti-government protesting (even though the never actually explained what the dicks were protesting about)

So the media were out in force yesterday for what they thought would be a mass protest with hopefully a bit of argy bargy.

Except Sue Bradford found out she doesn’t have any supporters, and One News found out that all of the talk of mass protests was nothing more than hot air.

So did One News then call out Bradford and show their viewers that she talks a lot of crap and has no backing?

Or did One News instead ignore this and spin Bradford’s line that questions should be asked about how many cops were at the conference and the cost to taxpayers?

I think you know the answer.

Looking into the future the single biggest issue for politicians is going to be how to they manage to cut government spending to levels we can afford. John Key may not think superannuation is a problem, and it may not be for him, but it is for future generations, and future generations of politicians. They will be forced to deal with increased superannuation which will put huge pressure on other spending areas. Sometimes sacred cows have to be slaughtered and this is one such sacred cow…perhaps we might find that scared cows make the best hamburgers…but we never will while we dither on the issue.

A political environment where the voters are tired of deficits and profligate governments poses interesting problems for all across the political spectrum. National may actually have to do something rather than incrementally move at glacial pace for fear of offending someone. Even if that someone is Sue Bradford, John Minto or the union movement National quivers with fear at the thought of offending them.

Labour dominated by unionists will discover the unpalatable truth, without a productive economy the state cannot spend as much. Much in the same way the last really good government, the Lange/Douglas government, reformed New Zealand for the better a modern Labour government might do what National won’t and man up to the difficult issues. Being Labour they may also screw things up royally, but give them credit, they will have a crack.

The Greens will be badly bruised by their first term in government and will either have to become realistic or they will wither. Greens have nice ideas but they aren’t very practical in the real world, which means they are best suited to opposition. Other minor parties may not be in parliament.

Over the next few weeks I will blog about this issue, and will welcome guest posts or comments on this subject.

Sue Bradford tweets;

Anyone know the real reason for Ngawha disturbance yesterday?I always wonder what the real story is when prisoners take desperate action.

— Sue Bradford (@suebr) July 8, 2012

I don’t know Sue. What could have prompted this from the brave freedom fighters?

Maybe the ice in their gin and tonics wasn’t cold enough? Maybe they missed their mummies?

Or could it be they are just a bunch of low-life crim scumbags causing trouble?

ᔥ Bloomberg

In a great article about Sweden and how well its economy is doing, they make the following point:

After many years of absence from the debate, I attended a conference on the Swedish economy in the southern city of Malmo last month. Swedbank, a large bank, was the organizer, and the 180 speakers represented the full range of Swedish views. I was amazed to hear how far the consensus had moved to the free-market right, even among Social Democrats and trade-union leaders. The values are competition, openness and efficiency, while social and environmental values remain — a social-welfare society without the social-welfare state. The idea is to make it more efficient through competition among private providers.

Here such an untenable philosophy, no matter how practical, or how much it would save New Zealand, or benefit recipients, would cause all manner of angst among the usual whingers and lefties and malcontents, and would likely see Sue Bradford in the street protesting.

ᔥ Dominion Post

The Dompost editorial had a sting for Labour, some advice they really should listen to. They won’t of course with lame duck strategists still calling the shots.

Labour’s problems go far deeper than Mr Shearer’s timorous leadership and Mr Jones’ quixotic approach to his ministerial responsibilities.

While Labour’s leader and senior spokespeople um and ah about what they would do differently from the Government, its putative ally, the Green Party, is eating its lunch.

Having shed itself of the nutty Sue Bradford, now helping the Mana Party plumb public opinion poll depths, its 14 MPs are bringing a previously unseen focus to environmental issues.

There will be many who shudder at the prospect of the introduction of a carbon tax, and the other tax changes proposed by Green Party co-leader Russel Norman in a pre-Budget article in last week’s Dominion Post. The party’s philosophical objections to major roading projects and its feel-good plans for state-owned power companies are equally alarming.

However, there is no disputing that the Greens know their stuff and are arguing from a position of principle. The contrast with Labour could not be starker. It is apparent every day – in Parliament during question time, and on the airwaves.

The Greens are sharper and more intellectually rigorous. Labour’s MPs give the impression they are waiting to be told by their researchers what the public thinks about an issue before taking a position. The Greens, on the other hand, are setting out to change public opinion.

It is unlikely the environmental party will ever gain enough mainstream support to dominate a government. The trade-off inherent in their policy between prosperity and the environment limits their appeal.

But while the Greens continue to expose the inadequacies of their Labour opposites, there is little prospect of Labour reasserting itself.

Labour needs to deal with its historical baggage and sort out what it stands for quickly. Otherwise it might as well forget about the 2014 election and start planning for 2017.

ᔥ The Telegraph

I hope, for the sake of the people that Sue Bradford doesn’t get ideas like this:

Topless Femen activist Yana Zhdanova is immediately seized by police as lowers her top and tries to grab the Euro 2012 championship cup on display in Lviv, Ukraine.

A topless activists from a Ukrainian women’s rights group staged a third attack on the Euro 2012 soccer trophy on Monday, grabbing it while it was on public display in the Ukrainian town of Lviv, before being seized herself by police.

Yana Zhdanova, an activist in the Femen group, peeled down her dress revealing the words “—- Euro 2012″ on her torso, and grabbed hold of the 60 cm high cup while it was being exhibited in a central square.

The Kiev-based Femen group is focusing its topless protests for women’s rights on next month’s Euro 2012 soccer tournament, which Ukraine is co-hosting with Poland.

Femen says Euro 2012, which will run in Ukraine from June 9 to July 1, will lead to a surge in prostitution in the former Soviet republic and entrench the country as a sex tourist destination in Europe.

“We needed to tear down this trophy to show that this phallic symbol does not need to stand on a pedestal, when our country is being turned into a brothel. UEFA have arranged this with our politicians in order to win back the money that has been put into the Euro 2012″ said fellow Femen activist Oleksandra Shevchenko.