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Sunday, December 12, 2010

Dear John Armstrong - no need to dry hump PM's leg



Politician of the year: John Key
Within the deep recesses of the Labour Party and elsewhere on the left, there is a lingering arrogance saturated with an intellectual snobbery which blinds and deludes its sufferers.

The second anniversary of John Key becoming Prime Minister has been and gone. But the self-satisfied superiority and smugness exhibited by his critics continues unabated.

They cannot bring themselves to accept that Key's occupation of Premier House follows anything but a terrible mistake on the part of voters who will come to their senses in time for next year's election.

The left dismisses the most popular Prime Minister in New Zealand's recent political history as Smile and Wave John Key, Do Nothing John Key and Lucky John Key.

The left's fatal error has been to constantly underrate Key in terms of ability and the fact that though he is of centre-right disposition, he is firmly at the moderate end of that broad spectrum.

Key does not fit the left's mould, which assumes or even dictates that someone as wealthy as him must be an acolyte of the old New Right.

In short, Key's critics on the left still don't get it. Maybe the Mana byelection will remove a few scales from a few eyes. It should. That result was a gruesome preview of the slaughter that may well be inflicted on Labour at the end of next year.

National's stunning performance in the byelection and stellar showings in the polls are reasons enough for according Key the title of Politician of the Year.


Not since Garth George last year has the NZ Herald gushed love at the Prime Minister with the excitement of a spraying tom cat. Garth breathlessly wrote in 2009, “You feel comfortable in his presence” and went on to demand that Key’s family gets to travel for free anytime, anywhere and that NZers should consider bowing when the Key family pass. I was waiting for Garth to suggest that we should bring sick children out to the steps of Parliament where John Key could bath them in his optimistic aspiration.

That's right Mr Armstrong, the intense dislike of John Key is the issue, not the reasons why the left dislike John Key, it's the 'way' we are disliking John Key. Because we on the left describe John Key as 'Smile and Wave' who is merely a front man for the machinations behind the scenes - OOPS, that last bit about John Key being a frontman for the machinations behind the scenes was actually Bill English and Rodney Hide caught out saying that wasn't it?

Claiming the left are the ones painting Key to be a stoolie for right wing legislation is ridiculous when the Deputy PM AND the leader of the Political Party he is in coalition with have said it first!

The left dislike John Key Mr Armstrong because his policies are detrimental to large swathes of society leading to further social inequality leading to more damaged communities.

John Key certainly is a moderate when it comes to social issues via his state house upbringing (which would make todays state house tenants look middle class btw), but his economics are corporate, and while he has tried to stay moderate for the sake of the brand National need to sell for 2011, he has been dragged to the extreme right and will continue to be dragged there.

The 90 day right to sack across all sectors was opposed by Nationals own Minister for Labour, yet ACT were given it. That was one of many cases of ACT wagging the National dog as the right wing forces for privatization quietly went about setting everything from TVNZ to ACC up for sale.

The Tuhoe land deal that was cut off because of white focus groups on the North Shore freaking out about 'Maaaaaaaaori getting too much' showed Key up for the kneejerk response he has when Steven Joyce from the hard right of the Party whistles.

And the myth of Key the 'dealmaker' was burnt to a cinder as NZers realized how badly played we had been by the manufactured crises at the Hobbit. By siding with Warners right at the start for political advantage over the Unions, who a day earlier had led the largest union demonstrations in a decade, John Key had NO negotiating ground left when Warners glided in on taxpayer funded limos to hardball the Optimist Prime. By putting political gain above national interest, Key's only response when in that room was 'how much do you want for the precious master? I must have the precious' (The less said about Peter Jacksons nomination as a supporting actor in a commercial negotiating tactic the better).

Oh and for the record Mr Armstrong, you seemed to have glossed over a whole lot of shit cake to polish John's cherry, just in case you missed it...

John Key has seen the largest Union protests in a decade with 21 000 on the streets.

John Key has overseen the largest dismantling of our democratic oversight by ramming more legislation through under a misuse of urgency than any other Government since Roger Douglas was writing his love sonnets to Milton Friedman.

John Key re-awoke a 50 000 strong match against mining up Queen St

John Key is about to pass vast increases in state power through the SIS and 70 other state departments which amount to the largest erosion of civil liberties by one Government ever outside times of war.

John Key has opened the door to the private prison industry, the most warping and deforming of all corporate influences on social policy, into our country.

And John Key's nervous joking at Paul Henry's racism and lack of any response until his poll masters told him was spineless.


This term in office was sold as National lite. The second term is National full bodied creamy privatization, sadly the Herald's stockholm syndrome with the National Government means they can't differentiate between the smokescreen and what's coming in 2011.

3 Comments:

At 12/12/10 1:47 pm, Blogger Geoff Houtman said...

With the right splitting it's up to Labour to take it to the next level.

To do this they need a leader who the punters of New Zealand will believe in enough as PM.

Goff is not that leader.

There's between 8 and 11 months til the next election (depending on who you listen to).

Who can lead Labour to victory?

 
At 12/12/10 3:53 pm, Blogger Dcrown said...

I was taken aback when I read this article this morning.
With all its sweeping statements about the left there are no specific examples of "intellectual snobbery" or "self-satisfied superiority and smugness" given to back up such generalisations.
Very, very sloppy. I thought such baseless statements were only found on Fox News and the like.

 
At 14/12/10 3:10 pm, Blogger Kingi said...

Bomber you forgot to mention the lesgislated transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich via tax cuts and the increase in gst...

 

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