spin

Categories under spin

Look. Over there!

Written By: - Date published: 3:26 pm, September 5th, 2008 - 49 comments

A friend has just rung to excitedly inform me that National’s conservation policy has now also been released by Trevor Mallard. That means there is officially a leak in the National Party caucus. I expect in the next hour or so the Nats are going to start their misdirection campaign and I expect it will […]

Granny beside herself as polls turn

Written By: - Date published: 11:50 am, September 5th, 2008 - 20 comments

As the polls start to turn on National – and a new poll out yesterday saying the Left working with the Maori Party would have the numbers why aren’t we surprised that Granny Herald’s ‘your views’ section today asks voters if they think the polls are accurate? Could they be more blatant in their concern […]

Dissection

Written By: - Date published: 1:13 pm, September 2nd, 2008 - 19 comments

OK, so there are limitless ways to mock the Nat’s ‘WW2 bombers flying to Chile’ billboard (send us yours to add to these ones) but I want to quickly examine it seriously as a piece of political argument. First, the premises: a) our taxes are high: No, they’re not. Tax as a percentage of GDP […]

Weak

Written By: - Date published: 3:35 pm, September 1st, 2008 - 101 comments

Perhaps I’ve overestimated the National Party’s PR machine. I mean I’ve seen them run their C/T strategy pretty well and, as much as I hate to admit it, Ansell’s billboards were pretty bloody good last time. But then I opened the PDF with their latest billboard on it. It’s busy, the message is confusing, and […]

ToryAid: Wastewatch (4)

Written By: - Date published: 10:54 am, September 1st, 2008 - 20 comments

Because National has abandoned its wastewatch website, we keep track of the ‘waste’ National has promised to cut to pay for those magical, mysterious, cure-all tax cuts. Here’s what they’ve said they will cut: 1) Embassy in Sweden – approx $3 million capital, $3 million operating (why it’s not waste) 2) Badges about Te Reo […]

Cullen on Nat apologies

Written By: - Date published: 1:51 pm, August 27th, 2008 - 41 comments

Say what you will about his politics, you can’t beat Cullen for wit. Here he is on the similarities between Labour and National following Williamson’s enthusiastic statements of National policy:  The full clip is here. Listen to Key plead to his caucus, and listen what he’s pleading for them to do – “If National wants to win an […]

Leave it to the pros

Written By: - Date published: 4:20 pm, August 19th, 2008 - 51 comments

Thanks to what I can only presume is a technical glitch at the Listener there’s online access to a lot more of their current content than usual including Jane Clifton’s column in which she’s bemoaning the blurring line between bloggers and jounalists. Hilariously she focuses on the responsibilities real journalists have and bloggers don’t but […]

Jumping the shark

Written By: - Date published: 5:08 pm, August 16th, 2008 - 78 comments

Remember the photos of McDonald’s wrappers strewn on a grass verge that John Key expected us to believe was evidence people had been rifling through his electorate office’s rubbish? Was there ever a more transparent attempt to deflect attention from a bad story with an obviously faked picture? No-one believed that Key’s rubbish really had […]

Wait, what’s working?

Written By: - Date published: 6:26 am, August 13th, 2008 - 18 comments

ENGLISH: So we’re sitting here saying the punters are keen to keep it. They’re facing a recession. The last thing we want is to spend the whole election campaign with families of four on TV saying ‘Mr Key’s taking money off us’. You can’t do that. So later on we’re gonna have to have a […]

A hard place

Written By: - Date published: 11:41 am, August 10th, 2008 - 13 comments

Kudos to Crosby Textor for doing such a good job of changing the secret agenda debate to the issue of who taped the conversations (although whoever came up with the absurd idea of taking photos of John’s rubbish should probably be put on leave until the election is over) but they have a harder job […]

Once too often

Written By: - Date published: 2:03 pm, August 9th, 2008 - 17 comments

Last week Colin James wrote that behind National’s one-page wonder policies there was actually a substantive body of work. The publicly-released work rights policy (“workplace policy”, as the Tories call it) was only half a dozen bullet points long but James assured us there was a 34 page document backing it. OK, he hadn’t been […]

On botox and pet grooming

Written By: - Date published: 3:38 pm, August 8th, 2008 - 41 comments

Pansy Wong’s supposed outrage over ACC “shelling out $750,000 for staff to indulge in day spas, manicures, and botox” has nothing to do with the organisation’s health and wellness programmes and everything to do with National’s attempts to prepare the scheme for privatisation. First off, her attack is utterly dishonest. ACC, like many large employers […]

Rubbish

Written By: - Date published: 10:20 am, August 7th, 2008 - 26 comments

John Key’s claims that Labour has been digging through the rubbish outside his Helensville electorate office have been dismissed by Michael Cullen this morning as paranoia. However, CCTV footage revealed exclusively to The Standard suggests Mr Key might just be onto something. Remember John, it’s not paranoia if they’re really out to get you. [Seriously […]

The stolen emails defence

Written By: - Date published: 10:06 am, August 6th, 2008 - 31 comments

So National has finally reverted to the ‘stolen emails’ defence to combat the damaging recordings from the weekend’s party conference. I’m only surprised it’s taken them this long – the misdirection tactic is classic Crosby Textor and it’s served the Nats well in the past. My guess is that National was hoping Bill’s humiliating charade […]

Spin-busting: ‘A growth problem, not a debt problem’

Written By: - Date published: 10:42 am, August 4th, 2008 - 28 comments

To justify borrowing for tax cuts, National’s new line is that New Zealand has ‘a growth problem, not a debt problem’. Untrue. (source) New Zealand’s growth has been faster in recent years than trend, faster than it was under National, and faster than growth in our major trade partners. We are in a shallow recession […]

Spinbusting: Nats’ borrowing not for tax cuts

Written By: - Date published: 10:58 am, August 2nd, 2008 - 75 comments

Today, Bill English is outlining National’s plan to undo the work of the past fifteen years and take this country further into debt. He will argue that National would not be borrowing for its programme of tax cuts for the wealthy, rather it would borrow for investment. That is a lie. We already borrow for […]

Like McDonalds, the same all over the world

Written By: - Date published: 12:41 pm, July 25th, 2008 - 16 comments

This is from 2005 in Britain but we saw the same script played out here last month: When SpinWatch asked Tory central press office to clarify the roles being played by Crosby and Textor the conversation was as follows: SpinWatch: ‘I was wondering if you could clarify the role that Lyndon Crosby and Mark Textor […]

The War on P

Written By: - Date published: 12:53 pm, July 22nd, 2008 - 9 comments

National Party strategist and Dominion Post columnist Richard Long declared war on “P” today. The “P’” word that is. Privatisation. Labour and the unions have attacked the proposed ACC changes by using the scare word “privatisation”, whereas the policy is actually aimed at providing choice in an area which is at present a monopoly.’ Actually […]

Key moves to shut down hard questions

Written By: - Date published: 10:07 am, July 18th, 2008 - 31 comments

Part of the Crosby/Textor MO is to avoid any hard questioning or real investigative journalism from the media. Step one in this process is be matey with journos. They’re people too and they can fall for charm. When that fails and something embarrassing comes out, attack the journo. Key did this over the “we would love […]

ACC and the rhetoric of ‘choice’

Written By: - Date published: 11:36 am, July 17th, 2008 - 23 comments

National says its ACC policy will provide ‘choice’ on accident compensation, but choice for who? Employers will be able to choose between a variety of competing (mostly private) insurers, but for the likes of you and me we’ll have to take what we’re given and pay the consequences of our employers’ bad choices. We won’t […]

Spinbusting: NZF’s donations are Labour’s business

Written By: - Date published: 8:59 am, July 17th, 2008 - 52 comments

National is calling on Helen Clark to investigate alleged donations by Owen Glenn to New Zealand First (which, if they happened, were perfectly legal). Consider what that means: National is advocating for the leader of a political party to be able to delve into the internal finances of another political party. That would be a […]

Crosby/Textor line de jour

Written By: - Date published: 7:46 am, July 16th, 2008 - 82 comments

Every Wednesday, John Key does his round of interviews. Breakfast TV makes a nice soft start with interviews on Breakfast then Sunrise. Then he’s on KiwiFM with Wammo and bFM with Mikey Havoc, neither of whom are political specialists but are increasingly asking good questions. Every week, Key comes prepared with two or three lines, […]

So much for ambition

Written By: - Date published: 6:30 am, July 14th, 2008 - 40 comments

Yesterday on Agenda, SOE Minister Trevor Mallard said that the Government was undertaking an exploratory study to see whether the factory that currently repairs trains could also be used to assemble trains. If its economical, specialised parts would still be imported but a major manufacturing job would take place in New Zealand, building up New […]

Bullies

Written By: - Date published: 4:36 pm, July 13th, 2008 - 48 comments

Why is it that the right are so much more litigious than the left? The recent example of Crosby Textor threatening legal action over JafaPete’s minor inaccuracy on his blog is just the latest bit of overkill. For those of you who don’t know the background to it, JafaPete put up a post stating Crosby […]

Failure to front up

Written By: - Date published: 6:43 am, July 12th, 2008 - 68 comments

When was the last time John Key did an in-depth interview? Why would a potential Prime Minister be afraid to be exposed through a long interview? What does he have to gain by keeping his public appearances brief and tightly controlled? How can New Zealanders get past the mask and have a chance to properly […]

Radio National

Written By: - Date published: 8:50 am, July 11th, 2008 - 3 comments

The day that National Radio publicises a ‘survey’ produced by Matthew Hooton is a very strange day. That day is today. Hooton’s ‘independent’ ‘survey’ finds flaws in the Emissions Trading Scheme. ‘Amazing’. For those with long memories, it reminds one of a survey the Sunday News ran back in the Dark Ages (early ’96) when […]

National’s Bank

Written By: - Date published: 4:54 pm, July 10th, 2008 - 21 comments

After reading Steve’s post this morning mocking ANZ National for putting out confused National Party talking points dressed up as research, a reader was inspired to send us this:

The clean man

Written By: - Date published: 9:22 pm, July 8th, 2008 - 76 comments

Has anyone else noticed John Key’s absence from the media in the last few days? I finally clicked to it while listening to RNZ this morning when we heard yet another “a spokesperson for John Key’s office says” comment. This is a pretty standard technique from the Crosby Textor hand book. I like to call […]

Hit and miss

Written By: - Date published: 10:13 am, July 8th, 2008 - 24 comments

Let’s look at some of the issues National has hit and run on. They were all you heard from the Nats for a while and then they were dropped when their marketing usefulness wore off. “Power crisis” – dropped in June when it started to rain “After-tax incomes” – Dropped in May, after the Budget, […]

Who are National’s moles?

Written By: - Date published: 5:53 am, July 7th, 2008 - 60 comments

The information being leaked to Nicky Hager is obviously coming from well-placed sources inside National The idea of hacking is farcical (Lyndon Hood mocks it beautifully). In the Hollow Men, Hager refers to his sources as ‘six senior National figures’, in the SST article he talks of ‘staffers’ being concerned about the actions of Crosby/Textor. […]

Democracy under attack

Written By: - Date published: 3:02 pm, July 6th, 2008 - 27 comments

Ruth Laugesen’s got a piece in the SST today entitled “How National’s spin doctors operate“. She points out that Crosby/Textor’s methods, contrary to the opinion of many other journalists here, do differ from what are considered standard focus group and polling methodologies. Auckland University political studies senior lecturer Jennifer Lees-Marshment suggests that C/T are different […]