Written By:
Steve Pierson - Date published:
10:16 am, March 6th, 2008 - 5 comments
Categories: john key, slippery -
Tags: john key, slippery
John Key is clearly missing Kevin Taylor, his chief spin doctor. When Taylor is around, Key is ‘Mr Teflon’ but, with Taylor on holiday at the moment, we have seen the real Key: uninformed, incoherent, inconsistent, ‘Slippery John’.
John Key, it must be remembered, is a media creation, a creature of pure spin, whose job is to get back power for National at any cost. With no principles to guide his positions on issues, he needs to constantly find a line that will appeal to the public, while not pissing off National’s big business base. Doing that without looking slippery requires the skill of a Kevin Taylor.
Without Taylor pulling his strings this week, Key has flailed disastrously. Even his speeches, which Taylor usually packs with good lines, have suffered. The best Key could muster by himself was ‘more chance of finding Mr Whippy on Mars than a Labour MP in a Maori seat’. Poor.
If this is Key left to his own devices as National Leader, just imagine what it would be like if he was Prime Minister and had to make real decisions with real consequences.
The current rise of populism challenges the way we think about people’s relationship to the economy.We seem to be entering an era of populism, in which leadership in a democracy is based on preferences of the population which do not seem entirely rational nor serving their longer interests. ...
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indeed steve, indeed. imagine him at negotiations with the US.
what strikes me is what a slow learner he seems to be. he’s been in politics a few years now and still seems to know nothing about his party or its policies. i guess he figured on leaving all that detail to his mignons and just play the helicopter manager. unfortunately for Key when you have to front hostile audiences you really do have to have a lot of information loaded, understood, and ready to go. i suspect he isn’t capable of acquiring the necessary knowledge in the time he has left, which will leave him mighty vulnerable when the media do finally start to turn on him.
Agreed on his continuing ability to appear vacillating and uncertain. I wouldn’t blame Kt’s absence or see him as the saviour (not that I know him) given that Key has made similar gaffes when he was on deck.
I don’t think KT is able to stop the mistakes but he definitely runs very effective damage control. There’s no way he’d allow Key to go unbriefed (or rather without lines) for such long periods of time.
New Nats war-cry – Bring Back the Brash!
(goes well with a mullet too)