Keeping the help in line

Written By: - Date published: 7:20 pm, November 24th, 2011 - 37 comments
Categories: class war - Tags:

This from Andrea Vance:

The bus driver taking National leader John Key on a tour of the North Island has been ticked off after talking to journalists.

Reporters on the campaign coach began interviewing John Godfrey when the entourage stopped off in Stratford to greet party supporters.

Godfrey, who was in the middle of explaining he has driven more than one million miles in his 20 year career, was dragged off by an aide in a National party t-shirt.

She could be seen though the windows gesturing at him to emphasise a point.

When reporters approached Godfrey a few minutes later to resume the interview, he said ”no comment.” Asked if he had been told not to talk to journalists he repeated ”no comment.”

The coach is on the Wellington-New Plymouth leg of a two day trip up.

Looks like keeping Key’s image up means keeping the help in line. Not a good sign for all the other working Kiwis John wants to govern…

37 comments on “Keeping the help in line ”

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  1. uturn 1
    24 November 2011 at 7:40 pm

    I agree that if you need to threaten your people not to speak, then you haven’t much good to offer.

    But, you lay down with dogs, you wake up with fleas. I can’t entirely feel sympathy with the driver, since I imagine he wasn’t bonded to the campaign like some kind of slave. If he was, he held all the power in that situation to tell the aide to bend and stretch because they’d be stuck in a hostile town with no driver. He might even have been covered by some kind of Union agreement. But he didn’t, and chose to do as they told him, for either contractual reasons or ones of free consent or a reason we’ll never know. His choice – even if it was, as one commenter this morning suggested, from behind a veil of ignorance.

    The only further thing you could catch the aide/campaign crew on is some kind of moral transgression to match a Left leaning perception of the world… autonomy and categorical imperatives and the such. But who would understand or care about that? Not many that read the Herald.

    So what’s the door into this problem IrishBill? In what way are we meant to measure this story?

    • IrishBill 1.1
      24 November 2011 at 7:55 pm

      Um, he’ll be a bus driver for a charter company who’s just doing his job. There’s no reason he shouldn’t and there’s no reason he should be treated like this.

  2. tc 2
    24 November 2011 at 7:42 pm

    Yup your paid to drive, not have an opinion serf.

    This is pretty much the influence they seem to have had over the MSM up until teacup gate when they just all seemed to grow a pair , briefly albeit, and way too late for the country’s sake….all except the diehard sycophants like Armstrong etc.

  3. coolas 3
    24 November 2011 at 7:46 pm

    Anyone around him long enough will see he’s not Mr Smile&Wave. The throat slitting jesture in the House, the slimy handshake at the RWC, and his caustic utterances to Banks are the side they, CrosbyDextor and all his sychophants, are struggling to conceal. Don’t know if 48 hours is enough time but sure as hell the clock is ticking.

  4. ghostwhowalksnz 4
    24 November 2011 at 7:51 pm

    The report uses the words “dragged off” by an aide ( dont these people have names? or are they state secrets)

    I can imagine ‘cut short’ or even’ interrupted’ but this has a more sinister jack boots tone when you are ‘dragged off’

    Doesnt anyone else find it strange that such an ‘affable and easygoing PM’ is surrounded by such reactionaries that call in the police over a conversation or discipline someone for talking out of turn like a playground bully

  5. Jill 5
    24 November 2011 at 8:12 pm

    The bus was parked outside the Brentwood Hotel in Kilbirnie overnight, and I was impressed with the early hour at which it took off this morning – presumably to pick up Key at the NZRAF terminal after his TV3 debate in Auckland the previous night. Unfortunately, dedication does not always bear fruit.

  6. Insider 6
    24 November 2011 at 8:18 pm

    Ya wonder what else Jo and Phil de Joux (The National Party Campaign Director and John Key’s Deputy Chief of Staff – yup, the ultimate power couple) are hiding from the New Zealand public. Time will tell.

  7. Tiger Mountain 7
    24 November 2011 at 8:37 pm

    Yeah who knows without more information. But it sounds just like tory ‘control the narrative at any cost’ behaviour. I would also be unsurprised if the driver if later pressed said “I wuz gonna vote for John Key and still will, fair enuff to keep his privacy from the media eh…” But would be ok to be proved wrong on my guess as it is highly unlikely!

    The rest of the help, aka nz workers starting a new job, are pretty much under control anyway with high unemployment and 90 Day Fire at Will. Stuff ’em join a union!

  8. felix 8
    24 November 2011 at 8:38 pm

    What are they hiding?

    Does Key strike you as someone who’d be into spending all that time on a bus?

  9. Galeandra 9
    24 November 2011 at 8:40 pm

    Worried about his overhearing stuff during the thermos-full-of-tea party, maybe?

  10. Maui 10
    24 November 2011 at 8:44 pm

    A wee over-reaction perhaps ?

  11. Lucy 11
    24 November 2011 at 8:45 pm

    So National is ‘keeping the help in line’ but are they keeping the climate in line?

    Do you know what parties are taking action on the number one issue facing our future?

    Find out at http://www.electwho.org.nz!

    Nga mihi nui,

    Lucy

  12. tsmithfield 12
    24 November 2011 at 8:50 pm

    Must be pretty light on John Key hate material if this is what is being resorted to now.

    • felix 12.1
      24 November 2011 at 8:58 pm

      And yet here you are.

    • mike 12.2
      24 November 2011 at 10:37 pm

      I already have all I need. It’s just that new stuff comes so thick and fast. This just a titbit next to the real reasons to dislike Key. But even the bus driver gets the cone of silence? Surely Key’s not discussing party secrets within earshot of the driver, so what are they worried about? It can only mean one thing…

      “What did you say about the shape-shifting?”
      “Nothing boss I swear!”
      “I told you what would happen if you did.”
      “I know boss. I’m sorry boss. I said nothing.”
      “Stop crying slave. Kiss my hand, then get back to your seat.”

  13. Pete George 13
    24 November 2011 at 9:22 pm

    Employee confidentiality is fairly standard. I know a lot of things about many people I work for I wouldn’t reveal.

    Most bus drivers will not be familiar with how to deal with hordes of political journalists, so it would be prudent to not engage at all. Quite possibly part of the contract but that shouldn’t be necessary – it’s professionalism 101.

  14. Peter Marshall 14
    24 November 2011 at 9:38 pm

    3 more years. I look forward to buying shares in Solid Energy & Mighty river etc. I believe in these assets so I would like to own a bit of it.

    • Campbell Larsen 14.1
      24 November 2011 at 10:31 pm

      The public already own the assets Peter.
      Now you want to pay for them again, and then pay for the services which used to be free but can no longer be funded because of declining tax revenue due to lost returns from having sold those assets, and pay more for you power just so you can gamble on the chance that you may get richer from this one off lolly scramble while the country is held to ransom by foreign corporates.
      You are one strange dude.

      • chris73 14.1.1
        25 November 2011 at 4:54 am

        So I can go to the bank and get a loan based on my ownership of those companies?

        I can sell some shares (partial ownership) in those companies if I need to?

        I agree that they seem like a good investment with a good rate of return for divedends (of course they charge like a wounded bull) so I’m going to get some money together and buy some as well

        • Colonial Viper 14.1.1.1
          25 November 2011 at 7:24 am

          So I can go to the bank and get a loan based on my ownership of those companies?

          Yes. The Government can, on our behalf, and actually does so from time to time.

    • warren 14.2
      24 November 2011 at 10:32 pm

      You already do.

  15. Afewknowthetruth 15
    24 November 2011 at 10:25 pm

    Lucy

    Over a period of more than a decade of attempting to talk with them about the crucial issues of our times, I have yet to meet any National MP or candidate that gives a damn about the long term future. As far as I can work out it’s all about ego, ideology, and establishing and operating rorts.

    Unfortunately, in my expericnce most Labour MPs and candidates have demonstrated themselves to be little better.

  16. hoom 16
    24 November 2011 at 11:12 pm

    I wonder if they might have been concerned that some media light would be shined on the apparent abuse of police power in moving legally parked cars to help get the campaign bus underway?

    • mike 16.1
      24 November 2011 at 11:42 pm

      You see what I mean tsmithfield? The dirt on Key just keeps rolling in. It’s the scandal we’ve been waiting for: BUS-GATE! It’s over, you might as well just hand Goff the keys to the BMWs now…

    • fender 16.2
      24 November 2011 at 11:54 pm

      National pass legislation and move legally parked private vehicles under urgancy. Running roughshod is their forte. It’s so easy to see why people like them.
      The media shining any lights on Nationals abuse has to start happening, can’t wait 3 years though. Maybe by then even the media would have moved to Australia too.

  17. Afewknowthetruth 17
    24 November 2011 at 11:45 pm

    When Key gets to NP he will be able to confirm to Jonathan Young that climate change is hocus pocus and that nothing need be done about it (other than work a few rorts via ETS).

    Meanwhile, in the real world, expect the price of anything containing peanuts, cotton or beef to increase significantly (unless the burgeoning global financial crisis rips demand to shreds):

    ‘In August, agronomists showed that the historic drought in Texas had caused a stunning $5.3 billion in losses in the agricultural sector. Two months later, even with some rain finally coming to the state, Texas farmers are being crippled by a drought that could stretch beyond next summer.

    As the economic losses pile up, they are having an impact on global commodities like cotton and beef — stretching this crisis well beyond the state of Texas, and showing just how “global” the problem of global warming truly is. Kate Galbraith reported on the “catastrophic drought” for The New York Times:

    Some of the farthest-reaching effects may be on world cotton markets. Texas produces about 50 percent of U.S. cotton, and the United States in turn grows between 18 and 25 percent of the world’s cotton, according to Darren Hudson, director of the Cotton Economics Research Institute at Texas Tech University. This year, however, yields even from irrigated crops have fallen about 60 percent on the high plains where the bulk of Texas’s cotton crop grows, Mr. Hudson said. Farmers have given up on their “dry-land,” or unirrigated, cotton crops.

    And it’s not just cotton. A terrible peanut crop will soon result in significantly higher costs for peanut butter products; pumpkin prices have also spiked due to a shortage from Texas; and beef prices are likely to rise due to the crisis:

    Many Texas ranchers are selling off large parts of their herds as the grass dries out and water becomes scarce. Some are buying hay from farms a thousand miles away, despite the high cost of shipping.

    The sell-off of cattle because of the Southwestern drought could push already-high beef prices higher during the coming years, according to Kevin Good, a senior market analyst at CattleFax, a company that does market analysis for the cattle industry. That is because many cattle are headed to the slaughterhouses now, reducing future supply.

    Since the record-setting drought began, the Texas Agrilife Extension Service reports that the livestock industry in Texas has seen more than $2 billion in losses, and the cotton industry has seen $1.8 billion in losses. Climate change will only make such drastic economic losses worse, sending larger ripples through the global economy.

    Meanwhile, Texas governor and presidential candidate Rick Perry continues to call efforts to lower climate-change inducing greenhouse gases “job killers.”

    If Rick Perry has his way and prevents the U.S. from doing anything about addressing climate change, crippling droughts will become the norm and he’ll be the biggest job killer of all.’

    http://www.grist.org/climate-policy/2011-11-01-texas-toast-state-drought-crippled-ag-market-global-impact

    • mike 17.1
      24 November 2011 at 11:59 pm

      “Job killers.” Brilliant. Rick Perry: king of ironic propaganda. If that man become president it’s time to join the survivalists in the hills.

  18. tc 18
    25 November 2011 at 6:48 am

    Unless they own the bus company he doesn’t work for them, considered who’s backside you’ll stick your tongue down after the coiffered one gets the shove as it won’t be required by the Nats.

  19. Sea Bandit 19
    25 November 2011 at 7:03 am

    Was there a Swastika on the side of the bus

    • Afewknowthetruth 19.1
      25 November 2011 at 7:52 am

      SB

      Most of the times I look at images of Key a black cap and SS insignia emerge of their own accord.

      This election campaign has been a GREAT SUCCESS for the neo-fascist party (fascist = melding of government, corporate and military interests).

      1. All the major issues of the times -peak oil, unravelling of fiat currencies and environmental collapse- which WILL determine the future, have been kept right off the agenda and have not been mentioned once in any so-called ‘debate’.

      2. The corportae media have played their role by manipulating the public’s perception of events, not reporting crucial matters at all, focusing on trivia and not questioning the drivel that has been presented …….in other words manufacturing consent.

      3. Labour candidates have done their bit to ensure NZ society gets ‘driven off the cliff’ by not mentioning any of the crucial issues either.

      4. Therefore, the bulk of the populace remains just as uniformed and deluded as they were three months ago.

      Sadly, it has all turned out much as I and others who have been challenging corporate control of society predicted it would at the start of the election campaign.

      The final phase will occur tomorrow when a bunch of scientifically illiterate ‘clowns’ and opportunists, consisting mostly of lawyers and part-time farmers, I belive, will be elected to continue the relentless assault on the future of the young people of NZ and the rest of the world, even as the implosion of the global ecnomic system and the collapse of the environment accelerate.

      This will all end very badly for most life forms on this planet, especially if the prediction of a 3.5oC rise in average temperature by 2035, made by the IEA, eventuates.

      Ants, cockroaches, scorpions, jellyfish and bacteria shall inherit the Earth, it seems.