Written By: - Date published: 12:45 pm, November 25th, 2011 - 21 comments
For the sake of your neighbors in Auckland and your extended family throughout New Zealand, could the voters of Epsom please terminate the twitching corpse of the Act party. Once they may have had a purpose. Now they just have John Banks and that other failed politician. Let us look forward into the sunset without this zombie party being maintained by the misplaced charity of the voters of Epsom.
Written By: - Date published: 11:00 am, November 25th, 2011 - 2 comments
We’ve been getting links to this song for a week or two. Wish I’d gotten round to posting it earlier. Just fantastic.
Hiding in his mansion/While half the population flies across the Tasman/The other half try to act like it’s not happening
There’s no depression in New Zealan’/ Just a slow sinking feelin’
Written By: - Date published: 10:14 am, November 25th, 2011 - 33 comments
It’s been a costly election for Key. After the teapot tape fiasco and the subsequent police raids on media, his political capital with the media (except for die-hard fans) is spent.
Written By: - Date published: 9:00 am, November 25th, 2011 - 25 comments
We’ve been getting emails and comments from people getting robo-calls from John Key. These pre-recorded calls are notoriously bad campaign tools. Invite lots of backlash. Odd National is introducing them (they used them last election but only on election day as a get out the vote tool, not to campaign). Shows they know this election is tighter than it looks.
Written By: - Date published: 7:03 am, November 25th, 2011 - 13 comments
The parties’ closing addresses screen tonight on TV1 at 7:30pm. Here’s Labour’s – a strong finish to a strong campaign.
Written By: - Date published: 11:43 am, November 24th, 2011 - 128 comments
The old timers say never trust a Tory. Can see why. Exclusive Brethren. Hollow Men. Tranzrail shares. Secret agenda tapes. Teapot tapes. Suppressed asset sales advice. Climate change ‘hocus pocus’. Police hiring freeze. We keep on discovering their secret agendas. If you care about integrity, if you’ve got enough pride not to put up with being lied to, you won’t be voting National. Only chumps tick Tory.
Written By: - Date published: 11:23 am, November 24th, 2011 - 45 comments
I don’t think I can recall an election in NZ conducted under such a cloud of extraordinary and dubious circumstances as this one. Media raids, suppressed information, lies, and apparently even discussing the weather could get you in to trouble.
Written By: - Date published: 4:20 pm, November 23rd, 2011 - 175 comments
Debate over. Not a walkover for Goff like the TV3 debate, but a win to Goff on points. Communicated effectively, came across as honest and open (compared to Key’s shifty body language), and had Key on the ropes several times.
Written By: - Date published: 11:59 am, November 23rd, 2011 - 12 comments
Download debate-bingo and see if you can be the first to mark off John Key’s hollow catchphrases in the final Leader’s debate tonight.
The winner will be all of us if we choose a better government on Saturday.
Written By: - Date published: 7:20 am, November 23rd, 2011 - 81 comments
John Key is really showing the strain of campaigning, he’s not bearing up under the stress of it at all well. Clearly the National Show Pony was not built for endurance.
Written By: - Date published: 7:07 am, November 23rd, 2011 - 53 comments
Last night TV1 revealed National’s lies on the explosive topic of asset sales. The Nats have no official advice to back up their asset sales claims, and information is being withheld from the public. Not good enough – vote them out.
Written By: - Date published: 1:13 pm, November 22nd, 2011 - 53 comments
According to reporter Derek Cheng (#dchengnzh) inside the courtroom “Judge reserved decision til 215 tomoro #votenz #ambrose“.
Written By: - Date published: 8:38 am, November 22nd, 2011 - 11 comments
Written By: - Date published: 7:20 am, November 22nd, 2011 - 104 comments
The 2nd TV debate was a 2nd win for Goff. He was human and humane, visionary and realistic. Key made excuses for his poor record, tried to hide in detail, and cast a sullen eye to the future. The worm told the story. So did the Right’s reaction. But, next debate, ditch the ‘expert’ panelists. …
Written By: - Date published: 6:10 pm, November 21st, 2011 - 275 comments
A clear win to Goff – Bravo!
Written By: - Date published: 3:22 pm, November 21st, 2011 - 49 comments
This will be one of the dirtiest political and anti-democratic tactics ever designed in NZ history. It has the potential of delivering a second John Key term, gifting Epsom to ACT and of discrediting MMP in one foul swoop: a true Tory Trifecta.
Written By: - Date published: 1:15 pm, November 21st, 2011 - 43 comments
In what seems a very wise move, police are holding off their searches of four media organisations until the legal situation has been clarified. See also some notes on the legal situation prior to Tuesday’s hearing.
Written By: - Date published: 8:29 am, November 21st, 2011 - 100 comments
Tonight is the TV3 Goff-Key leaders’ debate 7pm – 8:30pm. Remember “the worm”? It’s back. And (in a move that is a gift to National’s demographic) this time it’s packing a smartphone. Here’s how to get the app if you want to take part.
Written By: - Date published: 7:32 am, November 21st, 2011 - 46 comments
National is getting increasingly hysterical as its internal polling shows its majority slipping away and New Zealand First above 5%. National is lashing out, saying Winston could trigger a snap election because he wouldn’t sacrifice his principles like the Maori Party and ACT. Invent your own anti-NZF scare line for National:
Written By: - Date published: 2:19 pm, November 20th, 2011 - 74 comments
John Key has announced today that if Winston is re-elected, New Zealand will be forced to go back to the polls within weeks.
Meanwhile elsewhere on the limping catastrophe that is the John Key Campaign, Aroha Ireland has decided to leave New Zealand and join the record numbers of kiwis leaving permanently for a Brighter Future in Australia.
Written By: - Date published: 8:39 am, November 20th, 2011 - 57 comments
Written By: - Date published: 6:44 am, November 20th, 2011 - 35 comments
Apparently, Paul Goldsmith is not even handing out his business card in Epsom any more. And Imperator Fish reports on the extreme lengths he is going to in an effort to lose. But his popularity cannot be quelled. #hipstersforgoldsmith is big on Twitter. And new, completely legal, campaign posters are sprouting up. Can’t wait for Goldsmith’s victory party.
Written By: - Date published: 9:18 pm, November 19th, 2011 - 107 comments
Bradley Ambrose, the cameraman widely maligned by John Key and his pudgey lapdogs David Farrar and Cameron Slater for daring to hold the PM to some basic standards of accountability, is demanding an apology from John Key or he’ll take the PM to court for defamation.
UPDATE: The final week of the campaign will kick off with a police raid on the Herald Monday morning.
Written By: - Date published: 12:33 pm, November 19th, 2011 - 135 comments
Some say the tea tapes haven’t hurt Brand Key. In fact, National is down 2% last week and those polls were largely taken before the tea tapes hit overdrive. It also takes time for impressions and media narratives to bed in. The 26th will be the first poll to really tell us how much the tea tapes have hurt. But the internals could give us a clue.
Written By: - Date published: 7:22 am, November 19th, 2011 - 20 comments
Written By: - Date published: 1:45 pm, November 18th, 2011 - 26 comments
Outraging families of suicide victims. Insulting the Police as layabouts. Declaring war on the media. Negative teapot stories every day, now spreading to over coverage. The Nats are spinning this was planned; that they decided to go nuclear on the media as a vote winner. What a joke. They were successfully running a small target campaign until a week ago.
Written By: - Date published: 1:15 pm, November 18th, 2011 - 116 comments
The International Federation of Journalists has condemned police demands for media organisations to hand over information about the tea tapes.
Much as some of us have enjoyed watching Key squirm, this has gone too far. Time to call off the cops and release the tape.
Written By: - Date published: 8:23 am, November 18th, 2011 - 64 comments
John Key has a history of choking under pressure but this time, calling on the police to raid the premises of our national broadcasters TVNZ and RNZ, and our major privately owned newspapers - he’s cracked under the pressure of the campaign and the spectre of losing it all. There’ll be no knighthood if Key becomes the first National PM to lose after just one term.
Comments