Written By: - Date published: 3:15 pm, May 13th, 2008 - 70 comments
Categories: john key -
Tags: credibility, questions
I’ve just watched the first Question Time in 3 weeks.
After 3 weeks’ recess and lots of potentially juicy material to use, here I was expecting the Leader of Nats to come down to the House and stick the knife into Labour. But instead… what we got was a extraordinarily limp performance by John Key.
He still relies almost totally on questions pre-written on little cards by his advisors, meaning he can’t think on his feet and change his line of questioning based on the answers he is getting, as English can. His attacks fall flat when he returns to the script. This is really just as bad as Brash. His one trick (at least one that Brash could never pull off) is his predictable, pre-rehearsed, snarky one-liner for the media.
Today was particularly bad. I’d be embarrassed if I were Bill English. He stuttered, he was clearly just reading his questions, I thought his lines of attack were weak, then he sat down.
One more thought: Key has no credibility to speak as if he knows what the average Kiwi family is going through with higher fuel and food prices – ha, he’s just got off a plane from Hawaii after spending a good deal of the 3 week Parliamentary recess at his new holiday mansion in Maui. A tough life.
This is the guy who wants to be our PM because, well, just because. At least he took his Hawaiian shirt off before coming into the House.
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Ted – that’s a definition that is contextualized by the act of formatting. I could be generous and assume that you mean to use it metaphorically but in this case there is too much shared ground between the tenor and the vehicle for it to escape being effectively a metonymy and frankly? It doesn’t work as such.
Brett: you wouldn’t know “people” if you bumped into them you retard.
Tane:
HAHA!
A party that wants to make Dope legal, a party that has closed off all debate on climate change, a party that will tax everybody so high that noone will have money, a party that will cut all military ties.
They are probably the worst party that anyone could vote for.
Brett – there is no such word as “noone”.
Sod
Poppycock to say that Key being raised in a state house was just because it took a few years for his dads money to come through is rubbish.
One could certainly argue that he had more of ‘normal’ or should we say ‘average’ upbringing than many of those currently in parliament.
I really can’t see why this blog continues to demonise him the one time he had a chance to actually influence any policy since coming into politics was with s59 in which he sided with Helen – incidentally I disagreed with his position there.
Can you take poppycock out of the moderated words file it’s far better than the usual abuse on the site.
[lprent: It isn't in there - cock is, along with tablets, movie, dvd... I'll give you a guess what the spammers are trying to sell. At present we're getting the medical dictionary once they found that sex and movies get moderated. If I remove the sex ones from the moderation, we start getting some really disgusting links.
Somewhere there is either a very good graphics programmer or someone with a *lot* of time on their hands, because they're getting this stuff through those smudgy recaptcha entries.
I could give you a list of interesting alternatives that won't violate the moderation words. The 19th century generated some very interesting explitives]
Ted…If a union leader helps me achieve great pay and conditions in a contract settlement at work, then they deserve every cent they get!
Brett-
The point is that venting bile by calling respected people names is not a way to start an interesting debate. It’s a way to start a flame war. You messed up. Get over it.
“A party that wants to make Dope legal”
Alcahol has a greater cost to society. Should that be banned as well? Als the cost of enforcing prohibition on pot is far greater than what it saves (a recent report commisioned by the government confirms this log-suspected fact).
“a party that has closed off all debate on climate change”
We go with what all of the National Science Academies of the industrialised world. Who do you go with? The laughable, rag-tag, pseudo-science organisation that is the “climate science coalition”?
“a party that will tax everybody so high that noone will have money”
The Green parties policy is to shift tax from income to pollution/waste, and cut tax for low-income people. Tax wouldn’t be increased.
“a party that will cut all military ties.”
No they don’t. And it’s likely that the next regime in the US will thank us for not going into Iraq.
HS:
“Poppycock to say that Key being raised in a state house was just because it took a few years for his dads money to come through is rubbish.”
Back in Key’s day even middle-class families were eligible for state housing. He was never a pauper.
shit – sorry about the grammar all.
Nome
Not saying he was a pauper however this post portrays him as not knowing about ordinary NZ as per the second to last paragraph of the post – clearly that is wrong as ordinary NZ is where he came from.
Bloody worthless comment thread, this. Stop your bickering, it’s like bloody Kiwiblog.
For what it’s worth, I agree that Key’s performance in parliament is weak – he’s clearly not a politician by trade. But as to whether it’s embarrassing; that’s for the caucus to decide, and so far they seem right in behind him.
The lesson in this is that there’s more to politics than the cut and thrust of the debating chamber. I don’t understand how this comes as a great shock to anyone.
L
Key’s m.o. is much like the big swinging dicks exemplified in Michael Lewis’ book “Liars Poker”. He has the sort of mentality necessary for firing losers from a brokerage but no politician ever gets those sorts of privileges in a democracy
“Key has no credibility to speak…”
You’re kidding me right? Benefit of the doubt to you, you’re “having a turkish”….least I hope you are….as I suspect it’s not really a measure by which many in Parliament wish to be judged….
Anyhow, JK’s perf. during QT in the house – in this day and age, is perception still reality in respect of a public assessment of political skills in that arena…? Probably so, but my guess is many other factors weigh as heavily, and that’s partly a result of QT fulfilling a lesser ‘accountability’ role these days…perhaps more show than susbtance…? Who knows…but still entertaining…
Whoa. This is the new sting line from the left? That Key was ALWAYS a ‘rich prick’? Anyone got anything to support the claim that his mother’s income made her ‘middle class’ by the standards of the day or that after a few years of languishing in a state house ‘the money came through’ and freed him from being in a middle class (single parent) family?
You sound a bit snarky sparkie.
And envious.
You know, many people dont givt two hoots about performance in the ‘house’. They are more concerned about getting decent policies in place.
This imho typifies the blind allegiance to Clark et al – sure they are supremely competent political operators (who can come out with the quick and witty one-liner, and carry out the most sublime back-stabbing political subterfuge, etc) but at the end of the day they have little idea of the type of policies that actually accomplish things (oh, except how to hand out other people’s money – they are good at that)
A talent at politics does not equate to a talent for anything else.
It is like you’re all hypnotised by some of those spirally clown glasses.
vto if your opinion is humble then it aint worth very much
“This is the guy who wants to be our PM because, well, just because.”
Learn about the federal reserve to whom John Key was an “upon invitation only “advisor”"
http://aotearoaawiderperspective.wordpress.com/2008/03/25/g-edward-griffin-on-the-federal-reserve-of-new-york/
“ordinary NZ is where he came from.”
show me any other ordinary new zealander who goes to a market and sniffs the vegetables.
forgetfull
Suggest you log on Eve’s website you would make a perfect couple
Travellerev uncovers another conspiracy. She’s going at one a day. How long can she keep this up!
Billy,
there is only one conspiracy. A small group of very rich and powerfull individuals against the rest of us.
And because you choose to stay uninformed and dumb they can get away with it.
And higherstandard: o father(yeah I recon you’re a bloke, you act to stupid and aggressive to be a woman)of all ignoramuses keep sending them over, because I get record numbers of hits of people who choose to inform themselves rather than stay stupid.
First they ignore you, then the ridicule you, then they fight you and then you win. Mahatma Gandi.
Forgetful
Consider yourself invited
“First they ignore you, then the ridicule you, then they fight you and then you win. Mahatma Gandi.”
Brilliant
It’s Ghandi, Eve
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi.
Ev, you used the wrong “too” when complaining HS was stupid.
“It’s Ghandi, Eve
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi”
Make up your mind HS.
English is my second language, I think I’m managing a lot better in your language than you would in mine Billy, try pronouncing “klootzak”
it’s Dutch for asshole.
Why would I have occasion to be so base, Travellerev? Remember, I wasn’t the one running around saying everyone who disagreed with me was stupid.
“show me any other ordinary new zealander who goes to a market and sniffs the vegetables.”
I love the smell of well grown fresh vegetables. It’s right up there with the ‘new car smell’.
“First they ignore you, then the ridicule you, then they fight you and then you win”
I thought it was a line in a Robbie Williams song
PB
I blame my keyboard !
Billy
I have absolutely no problem with people disagreeing with me.
I have put forth links to video’s and websites to help people inform themselves over what is arguably the most important event in recent history. The attacks of 911. I have had record numbers of people come to my site and I take it that this is because people want to learn or even to just have a giggle or whatever.
If you had informed yourself and found holes in the evidence that a great many professionals and scientists had accumulated over the last 6.5 years and had confronted me with that I would have been happy to accept your proof and get on with my life because it is hard work being a 911 truther. So far I have only heard asinine remarks about being a conspiracy nut but absolutely no evidence to support the official “Conspiracy theory”.
The official 911 investigation is riddled with contradictions. The collapse of WTC 7 has never even been mentioned in the rapport, and the family members and survivors say that 70 % of their questions have not been answered. We want a new investigation, not because we think we know who did it, but because it scientifically impossible for 19 young men to have been able to do it and now we would like to know who could have done it. We do know that two wars have been started as a result of that day and a third is in the making, so if 19 Arabs could not do it than who did, and if they didn’t do it than why are we engaged in two wars with Arabs (and Pashtuns and other ethnicities)
If I call you dumb it is not because you disagree with me, but because you lack the where with all to make the effort to educate yourself and draw conclusions based on fact rather that the official hogwash they’ve been feeding us. Informed debate is bringing in valid arguments, not ridiculing someone because she brings facts and arguments to the table to which you have not been previously exposed.
Oh and Billy,
You say that I see a conspiracy when it concerns John Key and the Federal Reserve of New York, well actually it is not even secret.
It’s all out in the open. the biographies of all the private owners of the worlds money supply are quit happy to admit to their crimes and they function quit in the open.
Read this article for example: http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0709/S00549.htm
And the previous link that I gave is a presentation by a guy who has read all these biographies when he researched for his book “the creature from Jekyll Island. You should try just for the fun of it to go to some of these links.
Eve you are a lunatic. Those guys did fly planes into buildings. Their mates did blow up buses in London, their mates did blow up tourists in Bali.
Go and live in the land of truth somewhere in the middle east if you feel that strongly about living in a capitalist democracy. In fact – You dont deserve to have residency in NZ.
Travellerev:
You have so much hate for things western, that you believe in the wacko conspiracy theories.
I suppose all the attacks against Israel are made up to?