Tempting to leave this one to Kiwiblogblog but perhaps they need a break…
DPF writes this morning:
As I have said many times, most left wing parties do not share NZ Labour’s ideological hatred of reducing tax.
Kiwiblog is starting to read like a National Party line-book.
National desperately wants to position Labour as “ideologically driven” and National as “pragmatic”.
Their polling presumably shows public perception of Clark as ‘sure of her opinions’ while Key is perceived as rather more fickle and less driven by principles. To turn National’s weakness into a strength and Labour’s strength into a weakness National needs to sell the idea to the public that Key’s flakyness is actaully “pragmatism” and Clark’s conviction is “blind ideology”.
Hence quotes like the one above from National Party blogger David Farrar and others within his party.
The problem is that the analysis just isn’t borne out by recent facts. It’s spin.
Cullen’s musings since the announcement of another larger-than-expected surplus show that he has far from an “ideological hatred of reducing tax”. He’s identified four tests that have to be met for tax cuts: no borrowing to fund them, no cuts to services to afford them, no inflation flowing from them and no increase to inequality as a result.
Alongside the Key faction’s “tax cuts at any cost” mantra, that looks to me, decidedly pragmatic.
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