National: Building a blighted future

Written By: - Date published: 10:15 am, October 8th, 2011 - 72 comments
Categories: humour, john key, national, Satire - Tags: , ,

Since the nutters on the right at the sewer (otherwise known as the kiwiblog comments) seem to have a thing about billboards (probably because they can’t handle actual politics or actual policy). So to keep them entertained and running around like headless chickens rather than doing any actual political action – here is another billboard to keep everyone amused watching them.

I have no idea if this is real or adjusted, and I definitely do not advocate people doing this to billboards (I have had to do the graffiti and replacement runs myself). But it is a really funny adaption of a political slogan. Well at least to anyone who doesn’t live in the sewer.

Updated: And this just popped up on facebook with Lesley Soper saying

On one of his rare visits to Invercargill, Eric Roy carelessly parked around the corner from the Invercargill Labour Party Office. Too good a photo opportunity to resist.

Now that has to be a photoshop. I can’t imagine even a National MP being stupid enough not to look at his vehicle 😈

72 comments on “National: Building a blighted future ”

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  1. marsman 1
    8 October 2011 at 10:37 am

    Great!

  2. tsmithfield 2
    8 October 2011 at 10:37 am

    One major differences I have noticed is that the National billboards proudly associate Key with the candidate and prominently display the party logo.

    OTOH the Labour billboards make no association with Goff and minimise the size of the Labour logo. Can we take from this that Labour candidates are ashamed of both their leader and their party?

    • felix 2.1
      8 October 2011 at 11:10 am

      No, we can take from this that Key is all the National Party is counting on.

    • Carol 2.2
      8 October 2011 at 11:20 am

      Labour is foregrounding it’s team members, as worthy individuals, and in keeping with them as candidates to represent their electorates. The Labour branding is very clear, and puts the candidates in context as part of a team.

      National doesn’t seem to have much faith in its electorate candidates, and is relying on brand Key to brand the party, with its candidates totally subordinated to the party…. a party that supports individualism?

      • Jum 2.2.1
        8 October 2011 at 12:39 pm

        Yes, Carol.

        I am very pleased to hear that the Team of Labour is being advertised because that is how I see them. They are working together to bring Labour back into government.

        Key is running his usual tactics in newspapers and farming papers by using the word ‘key’ in as many headings as possible.

        Someone mentioned that to me prior to the last election; they weren’t political at all, but the sheer increase in that word attracted even their attention. They weren’t at all impressed. I think they voted for Winston Peters in 2008, and not National, because of the sly and cunning behaviour of NAct and the biased media.

        I think they realised back then that some other neo-conservative force was pulling the strings of the so-called National party.

        I believe that this deliberate use of his name should be included in his campaign expenses and a complaint made to the media council about no authorisation.

    • Redbaron77 2.3
      8 October 2011 at 11:35 am

      You appear to be suggesting that Labour “should” follow National’s format of billboard campaigning? The usual practice is for the local candidate to be solely promoted and not in conjunction with the leader. However National have decided associated JK with their local candidate. They are perfectly entitled to do this as much Labour are entitled to promote the local candidate only. National and Labour are different political parties running seperate campaigns. Moreover the campaign strategy adopted by either party does not militate the other to follow. The voters in the end will adjudge which candidate and campaign resonates the most with them.

    • lprent 2.4
      8 October 2011 at 11:47 am

      Look at that…. Evidentially you didn’t read my first paragraph that was about you in part..

      Since the nutters on the right at the sewer (otherwise known as the kiwiblog comments) seem to have a thing about billboards (probably because they can’t handle actual politics or actual policy).

      Perhaps you should try a new applet to read and consider the post before dumping out the first national party line that pops into your sluggish CPU.

      I realize it would be too much to expect National to get you the McCully upgrade on your path towards sapience

      • Redbaron77 2.4.1
        8 October 2011 at 12:19 pm

        I was specifically addressing Tsmithfields inane justification for National positing JK’s image on local candidate billboards. Yes they are off-tangent to the article above but I find your reponse a bit bizzare. BTW. I am an active member of a Labour Party LEC.

    • KJT 2.5
      8 October 2011 at 11:59 am

      Can we take it from that. Key is the only “talent” National have.

      • lprent 2.5.1
        8 October 2011 at 12:07 pm

        He does have talent. I have never seen a politician with such good bad news avoidance techniques.

        As soon as there is any bad news to front up on, then the job always descends on a minister. If there is good news or even stuff that can be spun that way, then JK appears from wherever he was at the time.

        It is hard to see any other talents..

    • Draco T Bastard 2.6
      8 October 2011 at 12:18 pm

      Oh noes, the left aren’t following Right Wing Authoritarian ideology by having a Randian Super-hero to arse kiss.

      /sarcasm

    • seeker 2.7
      8 October 2011 at 5:25 pm

      @ ts 10.37am

      Labour focusses on policies not idol worship ts

  3. Policy Parrot 3
    8 October 2011 at 11:19 am

    “One major differences I have noticed is that the National billboards proudly associate Key with the candidate and prominently display the party logo.”.

    The once proud National Party has descended into a personality cult centred around the Great Muddler, the Rt. Hon John Key. In fact, they have even more fundies and crazies than the David Koresh Branch Dividians.

    Everywhere you look – there is another portrait of the Great Muddler – his candidates and MPs can’t even have a photo billboard without his omnipresence. All hail, our Great Muddler – because without him – we are nothing!

    • Sookie 3.1
      8 October 2011 at 12:11 pm

      Oh so eloquently put 🙂 I think his grinning mug on local billboards is pathetic. The embarrassing git is their only selling point. National, relying on the gullible and greedy since whenever.

    • Jim Nald 3.2
      8 October 2011 at 12:43 pm

      National’s 2011 Election Campaign: It’s All About John Key

  4. randal 4
    8 October 2011 at 12:50 pm

    everything national touches ends up blighted. its nothing new.

  5. Adrian 5
    8 October 2011 at 1:05 pm

    It really does feel like North Korea. A bottle of wine to whoever finds the largest poster of our Dear Leader.

  6. Adrian 6
    8 October 2011 at 1:08 pm

    In more ways than ubiquitous portraits. Now we’ve got a marine oil spill disaster to go with all of the other blights . None of this shit ever happened when Helen was in charge.

  7. HardlyAnonymous 7
    8 October 2011 at 1:30 pm

    Comment written earlier in the wrong article…

    http://www.unpolitical.co.nz/

    Where you’ll find more slightly altered billboards for all parties 🙂

  8. gingercrush 8
    8 October 2011 at 2:31 pm

    Labour’s billboards are terrible though. They have barely any vote Labour boards that I can see (obviously I’m in Christchurch so can only speak for what I’m seeing here) Individuals is fine. But who in Labour decided to get rid of the simple two votes billboards they’ve had every other election. National’s do a better job but I would prefer they have the two votes on every billboard not on some of them. And I don’t even know who the candidate is for Wigram because I haven’t seen his face yet anywhere. The Greens are a bit strange. Kennedy Graham has two billboards with his name and the authorization of the Green party. And I don’t understand why they decided to do that whatsoever.

    The best billboards I’ve seen are from the Maori party. And if Labour and National copied them they’d be brilliant. The billboard has Katene pictured with a big tick for her and a big tick for the party vote. Though they probably don’t need to be seeking the party vote.

    And Lprent can sneer all he wants. If Labour can’t even get billboards right how are they ever expected to better their party vote from 2008. The whole point is as with National in 2002 if you don’t emphasise the party vote despite polling badly you tend to do reasonable on the electorate vote and terrible on the party vote. Being a party of individuals is great. But its bloody stupid when you capture the electorate vote and not the party vote as well.

    • felix 8.1
      8 October 2011 at 3:43 pm

      After three years of bleating that Labour must immediately cease everything it’s done in the last decade, the RWFJs are now having a tizz because Labour changed their billboards.

      Yawn gc. Why the fuck do you bother anymore?

    • lprent 8.2
      8 October 2011 at 7:15 pm

      gc: I was ‘sneering’ at the obsessional fascination that I saw in the recent post on the ‘black’ billboards, especially the faux concern comments. It was characteristic of the self unaware nature of some of the right when dealing with their animal nature.

      Corflute is mostly about territory marking, whuch is probably why the sewer always goes rabid about it and starts peeing everywhere whenever the topic comes up. You put it up because it is a relatively cheap way to get local name recognition for the candidate and to demonstrate to the voters that you have a nice healthy local organization. You can lose local races by failing to be present with corflute (weak candidate), but I have yet to see an instance in my experience where a race was won through corflute.

      Usually you mix a goodly number of the local candidate ones (short runs, expensive) with more generic party ones (long runs, cheaper) over the campaign. To get candidate name recognition, you put the candidate in as early as possible while they still have impact. You fill out with the latter as the campaign progresses as the impact diminishes in a sea of color.

      Personally, I have always associated excessive leader corflute early in the campaign as being a sign of political failure, if not in the current election, then in subsequent ones. It is a sign of a party that is going cult with a leader that is personally insecure. The party activists and the voting public tend to read it that way. That is when you have breakaways, visible fractions, repeated unchanging behviours, and other pack behaviors infesting the party shortly after. The smell of the dying corpse that I see all over the Nacts at present. Unlike act, national will probably hold it together though this campaign …..

      But the overall effect of corflute is probably less than for the candidate assidiously turning up to local events years from the election. Which is why early selections are so important.

    • QoT 8.3
      8 October 2011 at 11:05 pm

      I don’t even know who the candidate is for Wigram because I haven’t seen his face yet anywhere.

      Assumption is the mother of all revealing-your-inner-sexism fuckups.
      http://blog.labour.org.nz/index.php/2011/02/24/megans-view-from-wigram/

      • gingercrush 8.3.1
        8 October 2011 at 11:19 pm

        No it isn’t. Because I wasn’t talking about Labour’s candidate for Wigram.

        • QoT 8.3.1.1
          8 October 2011 at 11:28 pm

          I’d say “that’ll teach me for skim-reading your posts” but … I think I’ll stick with skim-reading your posts.

  9. Anton Angelo 9
    8 October 2011 at 2:56 pm

    “$15 a Ho minimum wage?”, Now, I’m all for the legalisation of prostitution, but surely they earn more than $15?

  10. randal 10
    8 October 2011 at 3:02 pm

    Billboards are just wallpaper really. The Parties know that its Policy that counts. Nationals two policies were get pissed while the r*gby cup is on and we are going to sell your assets after the next election. Both of them will o th ewisps that wil blow away after novemeber 26 when Labour will sh*t in carrying a pig as ol’ snapper clark used ta say.

  11. mickysavage 11
    8 October 2011 at 5:12 pm

    If these are photoshop jobs they are very good ones. Has anyone asked Eric Roy to check his vehicle?

  12. tsmithfield 12
    8 October 2011 at 6:53 pm

    Labour’s billboard strategy is stupid. The emphasis on the candidate is communicating to voters that Labour wants the electorate vote ahead of the party vote. This has to be a doomed strategy if I ever saw one.

    • Jum 12.1
      8 October 2011 at 6:58 pm

      tsmithfield, And, everyone knowing what a NAct acolyte you are, your point is? More lies? More crap? Go away, little man.

    • felix 12.2
      8 October 2011 at 7:17 pm

      When Labour draws concerted opposition from their opponents it signals that they’re on target.

    • lprent 12.3
      8 October 2011 at 7:20 pm

      You really do not understand what you are talking about, do you? Whilst there are more eloquent descriptions in the literature on politics, try mine…

      http://thestandard.org.nz/national-a-blighted-future/#comment-383065

      • tsmithfield 12.3.1
        8 October 2011 at 7:48 pm

        Nice theory. However, I think it is a little convenient that Labour MPs are pushing the electorate vote while both their party and leader are very unpopular. It seems to me they are trying to protect their own arses rather than do good for their party.

        • felix 12.3.1.1
          8 October 2011 at 7:52 pm

          National seem like they don’t have anything to offer except John Key. None of their candidates can run on their own merits.

          • seeker 12.3.1.1.1
            8 October 2011 at 8:14 pm

            @ felix

            “National seem like they don’t have anything to offer except John Key.”

            Absolutely right. I called it “idol worship when replying to tsmithfield earlier. And here is National encouraging us all to take part in such a wrong pastime. Many of us frown on such ungodly and antiquated practices.

            • Draco T Bastard 12.3.1.1.1.1
              8 October 2011 at 11:05 pm

              I call it what it is – subservience with a large helping of sycophancy.

        • Jum 12.3.1.2
          8 October 2011 at 8:07 pm

          tsmithfield,

          Still having trouble coming up with any plan or policy to discuss, I see?

          Very disappointing of the NActs but certainly expected.

        • lprent 12.3.1.3
          8 October 2011 at 9:18 pm

          Ah yeah… I was trying to think of how many actual on the ground campaigns I have been in to teach me that ‘theory’ and gave up. After all your naive exposition of national lines beats it every time..

          Silly bugger. Perhaps you should try policy.. Maybe you’ll have better luck there.. 😈

        • Redbaron77 12.3.1.4
          9 October 2011 at 7:47 am

          This line of reasoning is silly and deserving of the other rebutals. But it is also revealingly defensive. This indicates to me that you are not comfortable about National’s billboard strategy which subordinates the local candidate to John Key.

    • Zaphod Beeblebrox 12.4
      9 October 2011 at 10:03 am

      Whats so stupid about highlighting state sell off’s- pretty smart really.

  13. Jum 13
    8 October 2011 at 8:13 pm

    I’ve been looking at the billboards for the parties – only Labour and National up at present.

    The Labour ones are stunning standouts. The beautiful red is an eyecatcher.

    Beside that the blue National billboards with the usual suspect face on are actually quite lifeless and uninspiring. Certainly not NAct’s best effort, but then neither is John Key.

    • Colonial Viper 13.1
      8 October 2011 at 10:12 pm

      Certainly not NAct’s best effort, but then neither is John Key.

      Key’s no Holyoake.

    • Jilly Bee 13.2
      8 October 2011 at 10:52 pm

      In Waitakere/Te Atatu there are plenty of billboards going up – and they’re mainly Labour [Carmel Sepuloni and Phil Twyford] a few for Paula Bennett and Tau Henare and one or two for the Greens and N Z First in the Ranui/Swanson area. Far more Labour billboards than last time IMHO and they do look good, rather than John Key’s ‘smile and wave’ face alongside the candidates. I believe the National slogan is the same as last year – a brighter future, yeah right!

      • Colonial Viper 13.2.1
        8 October 2011 at 11:59 pm

        I believe the National slogan is the same as last year – a brighter future, yeah right!

        well, as per National’s statements its actually true. But you have to ask yourself, a brighter future for whom.

        Just like National’s promise of tax cuts “north of $50”. That also came true. But again ask, for whom.

        Poor old Joe and Joanne Smith thinks Key is talking about them when he says these things. Sorry guys, he is only talking for the top 1%.

    • QoT 13.3
      8 October 2011 at 11:07 pm

      You want bland, take a tour around Ohariu …

  14. fender 14
    8 October 2011 at 11:00 pm

    Building a blighted future for the 99%ers. Should be rules about putting your face all over the country, needs to be confined to your electorate boundry.

  15. tsmithfield 15
    9 October 2011 at 8:34 am

    Maybe the cunning plan behind Labour’s billboard strategy is to go for the overhang.

  16. Oscar 16
    10 October 2011 at 12:31 pm

    While Traveling through Rotorua yesterday I saw one of National’s Billboards on the front lawn of a derelict house. Quite apt and no Photo Shop required.

    • Ianupnorth 16.1
      10 October 2011 at 4:40 pm

      Whereabouts? Most of the ones I have seen are in the more ‘posh’ suburbs.
      I have an idea for the Nats signs – print a disclaimer –
       
      Building a brighter future (disclaimer on an A4 sheet applied to the sign)


      For the top 10% of earners only.

      • McFlock 16.1.1
        10 October 2011 at 4:53 pm

        National: Building a brighter future. Well, brighter than our last attempt, we promise!