Written By: - Date published: 2:28 pm, April 29th, 2008 - 59 comments
Categories: national -
Tags: john key, national, New Zealand, opposition
Strangely, given the fact the National Party is doing so well in the polls and looks to be the favorite heading into the election, things seem to be coming apart for them. We’ve heard a few stories about tense caucus meetings and divisions but mostly only as rumour and, in an election year, that sort of rumour is often a matter of someone’s wishful thinking or a bit of wedge politics. Except this time it’s different. We’ve had information leaked to us from a source within the National Party about what John Key is doing over recess.
I don’t think the information we were given is that big a deal as we were simply told he’ll be shipping off to his new Hawaii holiday home on Thursday. While that’s probably not the best look when he’s claiming to speak on behalf of struggling middle New Zealand, it’s also not exactly a capital offense. What is interesting is that this confidential and potentially embarrassing information was provided from within the National party’s caucus, and apparently not just to us.
In an election year knowing that the leader of the opposition is unavailable can be very useful. If for example the Labour Party was interested in launching a major policy they would know that he would not be able to respond. Equally the leaker may have just decided it could be embarrassing for Key to be seen to be off cavorting in his Maui mansion when he’s whinged about the government forgetting about ordinary New Zealanders. Either way there is someone in National who has deliberately set out to disadvantage Key. Given the fact National is doing so bloody well at the moment that’s very strange indeed.
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Scoopit!
It is a pity that this behaviour is not modelled by the current Minister of Finance.
What’s that about not liking personal attacks HS?
Bu-bu-but, rOb said “this place is going from strength to strength’. Are you telling me it’s not the greatest blog in the history of the world?!
I’ll take a wild guess that it has more readers than your work Scribe.
And no, it’s not the greatest blog in the history of the world, just the history of NZ. Non facetiously on the topic of great blogs, check out this excellent list:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/mar/09/blogs
Yes r0b
I dislike the personal attacks which is why I pointed out Michael Cullen’s effort.
Let’s say it really is someone inside National that wants to hurt JK, and the most controversial thing they could come up with was to tell you that he’s going to Hawaii for a holiday, surely that’s not good news for Labour. As far as skeletons in closets go it’s not that sensational and a pretty uninteresting platform for attack.
probably having a strategy meeting with the lynch mob. hey you guys I thought this was a done deal!!!!!!!
rOb,
I’ll take a wild guess that it has more readers than your work Scribe.
Ouch, that hurt. You’ve sunk my battleship.
“I guess it just shows he isnt as hard working as the likes of Judith tizard”
Anyone else catch the story on TV1 of the Labourites in their shiney new BMW Limo’s (theres a good look for Struggling NZ IB) Judith T gets out of her’s and can’t hear Guyons question cause she’s listening to her iPod. Oh dear
who gives a stuff about that little creep espiner and his creepy questions. he needs to go somewhere and get de-creeped
Bugger. Had to fix the caching to use mime types because WordPress is generating css and js like .js.php. I had the caching by file extensions after I moved from IIS. Also some image directories moved.
Anyway the server blew its little mind servicing high demand and sending files over and over again that it didn’t have to. Hopefully that is teh last upgrade problem.
Wasted by own time. Time for a beer..
Had the beer – now I’m watching web crawlers wandering slowly through every page on the site. That explains why I’m getting a change in the baseload. They have detected that the pages on the site have changed and are now busy reindexing it. There are a of a lot of them, googlebot is working around ?p=576, 1498, 832. I think about half of the load at present is crawlers. That fits with what I saw in the logs. The site is getting spidered.
Lots of things to note for the next time I do updates.
Well done lprent, we appreciate it!
“who gives a stuff about that little creep espiner and his creepy questions. he needs to go somewhere and get de-creeped”
You guys should really stop shooting the messenger. It’s getting old real fast.
its all about character j and espiner exudes creep without even trying.got nothing to do with the message or getting old..its about being a creep..dont you get it?
I’m somewhat dubious as to whether this really was leaked by a National party MP as you have suggested, partly because the details of Key’s holiday have already been circulated beyond Caucus.
My understanding is that Key revealed his intention to holiday in Hawaii when questioned by Ruth Laugesen regarding his purchase of an apartment in Hawaii. Key has often disclosed his holiday details in the past.
Laugesen then consulted with other editorial staff at the SST and decided not to run the story. I don’t know if this was to protect Key’s privacy or because Laugesen wanted to hold off to get another story out of it. It leaked out of the SST newsroom and has been floating around since. This isn’t quite the scoop you’re making it out to be.
Also, a couple more things. IrishBill invoked journalistic ethics in refusing to reveal his source which was fair enough. I wouldn’t expect you guys to and agree it would be unethical to do so.
However, identifying the source as being a National MP does raise some interesting ethical questions. Some people would say identifying the person as a National MP rather than a figure in the National party was unethical and I’m inclined to agree. It’s certainly nowhere near as bad as revealing a source but narrowing it down to one of 47 – despite an arguable public interest in revealing this – is a breach of the source’s trust unless permission to do so was given.
It’s a minor point but I hope your reference to Key’s ‘Maui mansion’ was a facetious one. It’s been clearly identified that the property he purchased was an apartment, so it’s a little unfair to claim he will be off cavorting in a mansion.
So Key has some cash and is going on holiday in Hawaii. Maybe he has earnedt a break..That’s unlike the glorious dear leader who fucks off overseas all the time on the tax payers chit?
And the advent of modern technology means people can stay in touch from ‘overseas’
“its all about character j and espiner exudes creep without even trying.got nothing to do with the message or getting old..its about being a creep..dont you get it?”
That’s the trouble with some people they operate on incorrect assumptions with no basis in reality. Keep up the good work though.
Nice headline in the herald today wasn’t it. Maybe there’s another conspiracy theory in there. Enjoy ;>
no it wasnt a nice headline in the herald today was it…its raining today isnt it. espiner is a creep isnt he. the nats are not going to win aren’t they..have a nice day wont you…bye bye
Actually Randal the sun’s out in Auckland at the moment – bizarre but true.
isn’t it?
Interesting that Key missed his interview on Breakfast this morning. Yesterday, they were advertising he would be on (as he is every Wednesday) but they had English instead.
English just repeated the same lines: the solution to every problem is lifting after-tax wages through tax cuts (implicitly, not wage rises).
Steve
It’s utterly uninteresting. According to the Herald Key is in Singapore. Think about the time differences…
As I said before the politics of envy
http://brendensheehan.blogspot.com/2008/04/wheres-johnny.html
As always the politics of greed
http://www.national.org.nz/Article.aspx?ArticleId=10097
Oh and let’s not forget the New Zealand Sucks campaign
http://www.national.org.nz/Article.aspx?ArticleID=12171
Brenden Sheehan is a right wing idiot and a liability to Labour- don’t assume he speaks for me or anyone else.
I like the idea of a holiday with the kids in Hawaii – except I can’t walk out the door without my workmates having to cover for me. Maybe that’s why some within National were feeling unhappy enough to drop the story? I see from Steve P that English covered for Key on BreakfastTV (and other regular slots too I suspect). Now English has his own young (and extensive) family – I bet he’d have liked some time off too….