Here a few doozies:

- the idea in his Herald profile that he was global head of forex for most of his Merrill London years. In fact it appears from trade press reports that he only held that position for about 2 1/2 years (1998-mid 2000) one of a string of global heads at Merrill that never quite managed to get it right as Euromoney reports.

- the claim on his parliamentary biography that he was on the Foreign Exchange Committee of the Ferderal Reserve of New York for three years. The FEC’s annual reports show that he was appointed for a three year term from 2000 to 2003 but quit the FEC in March 2001, and so was on the committee for 15 months, not three years. He would have attended at most 11 meetings.

- and one I find the most distasteful of all, trading off the tragedies of two Merrill families for political aggrandisement. In 2003 debate on the border security bill, Key told Parliament that on September 11, 2001

my boss, Michael Packer, died. He was giving a speech on the 108th floor, at Windows on the World. He perished with another two employees from Merrill Lynch, both of whom worked for me and whom I had recruited from the private sector.

Packer probably was the now Australian-domiciled Key’s boss in e-commerce but I doubt he had anything to do with the other two Merrill employees killed on 9/11. One was 26-year-old Robert McIlvaine, hired only in July 2001 for New York based communications jobs (Key’s already in Australia by then); the other was David Brady, a 16-year veteran at Merrill and a New York based private client advisor who looked after about 150 wealthy families. Key had barely made his first forex trade in 1985 and he’s claiming he hired this guy…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=diAXfbISefI&feature=channel

Yet another ad where he doesn’t wear a seatbelt…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=diAXfbISefI&feature=channel

Yet ANOTHER ad where he doesn’t wear a seatbelt! I guess he was just following what it said in his diary…

Potential disaster for the NACT here. This has all the hallmarks of yet another off-the-cuff blood-rush by the Gambler, akin to the KillWinnie classic. The clue was in the “details in a week or so” throwaway and the “most likely” above.

Right now some very worried young tory pen-pushers will be desperately trying to get their heads around current benefit law (including the notorious Temporary Additional Support) in an attempt to add some faintly acceptable flesh to this brainfart while Bill English gazes on laconically thinking “he’s done it again….told ya” (and struggling to hold it in – someone should interview him).

Not only does it betray a pitiful naivety as to the most basic mechanisms of the benefit system (which already caters in excruciating detail for any area of need) from one so “concerned for the underclass”, and a desperate attempt to milk the fears of the middle class: it also clearly exposes the Slipper’s total lack of political nous and conviction.

Expanded NANNY STATE welfare hand-outs from the Right? But only TARGETED at those with mortgages? Won’t this require many more EVIL BUREAUCRATS? And aren’t we expecting a BRIGHTER FUTURE any more?

Can’t wait for the details on this sucker…..

“National leader John Key says the financial support scheme to be unveiled this week would most likely be a grant, not a loan, to people who lost their jobs in the recession and could not meet their mortgage payments. … He said the scheme would not differentiate between people who lost their job through incompetence or through the downturn.

(my italics)

Woo hoo! Free money for losers! From John’s money tree!

(c’mon boss, I’m wasting time on the net, hurry up and sack me, I need the cash …)

“Insiders say considerable and careful thought has been given to all this. If it is popular, the package could give Key unstoppable momentum. If it is not, it could throw the campaign wide open.”

Thanks for the insight there John Armstrong… not.

Whereas Winston got 47 front page articles detailing his (claimed) perfidy, John Key gets a sympathetic “must be confused” euphemism for systematically misleading people…..repeatedly.

It would be funny if there was another – honest – newspaper in Auckland. Sadly, there isn’t.

Balancing Young’s column we have the front page story from John Armstrong about how National have finally got their campaign up and running in the “fast lane” with the same economic package Young raises questions about.

More wishful thinking from the Herald.