Labour’s Brotherly Dynamic Duo

Written By: - Date published: 11:30 am, November 30th, 2010 - 38 comments
Categories: election 2011 - Tags: , ,

They’ve already been dubbed NZ’s David and Ed Milliband.

Brothers David and Ben Clark will both be standing for Labour in the 2011 general election. David is standing for the safe Dunedin North seat, while Ben will be taking on Wayne Mapp on the North Shore.

Both have had very different career paths. David was a Treasury analyst, political advisor, and warden at Selwyn College. Ben has been a computer games programmer in Britain and now works for a hi-tech exporter in Auckland.

Yet despite their differences, they have one thing in common. They’ve got good experience and are smart.

It’s nice to see Labour attracting solid people with a range of experience across different industries. This diversity is absolutely critical to being well grounded and well connected across NZ communities. I think it’s true across party lines that some of the most effective MPs and Ministers are ones who have attained success in a previous profession.

Ben will have a bit more of an uphill battle in a National seat.

But both David and Ben would do well as MPs.

38 comments on “Labour’s Brotherly Dynamic Duo ”

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  1. gingercrush 1
    30 November 2010 at 12:02 pm

    Ben Clark needs a good list placement. Shouldn’t be too hard once you get rid of the following useless Labour list MPs:

    Moana Mackey
    Steve Chadwick
    Sue Moroney
    Mita Ririnui
    Ashraf Choudary
    Darien Fenton
    Raymond Huo
    Stuart Nash
    Rejen Prasad
    Carmel Sepuloni
    Shane Jones

    Or better yet just get rid of Clare Curran who is truly cancerous and put Ben in her electorate.

    • Lanthanide 1.1
      30 November 2010 at 1:05 pm

      I’ve been quite impressed by Carmel when I’ve seen her on parliament TV.

      • gingercrush 1.1.1
        30 November 2010 at 1:13 pm

        She is rather good on television and could be a good MP all round but her Red Alert posts haven’t impressed me in the slightest.

        Meanwhile, Darien Fenton whose Red Alert postings have been impressive. I just can’t see her desirability as a Labour MP and surely she’d be best placed to consider returning to her Union roots as I can’t see her being promoted into cabinet or even given a high placement in the Labour ranks.

        The biggest mystery is Rajen Prasad who has barely said anything and has seemingly done nothing.

        I wonder whether all parties should reconsider how people of Asian ethnicity are selected and what they as parties can do to ensure they have a proper role inside respective political parties. Parliament surely requires far more asian, middle eastern and pasifika MPs yet most of them time such people play small roles and have little influence and many of them shouldn’t be in parliament period.

        • Pascal's bookie 1.1.1.1
          30 November 2010 at 1:22 pm

          She is rather good on television and could be a good MP all round but her Red Alert posts haven’t impressed me in the slightest.

          Awesome.

    • mickysavage 1.2
      30 November 2010 at 4:22 pm

      Oh GS you should not trust everything that you read on kiwiblog or the sewer.

      For one Clare Curran is a very well performing MP. Her take on technology issues is really good.

      BTW Michael wonderful photo! I bet it will be used for many years to come.

      And good luck to Ben against the odious Wayne Mapp.

    • KJT 1.3
      30 November 2010 at 4:29 pm

      Clare Curren is one of the more promising MP’s. I suggest you listen to her a bit more.

      • Colonial Viper 1.3.1
        30 November 2010 at 4:33 pm

        And down to earth. Talks at you, doesn’t try and talk over you. A good change from the norm.

        • graham 1.3.1.1
          30 November 2010 at 5:26 pm

          hi [deleted]

          [lprent: Speculating on who people are in real life is something that I don’t like. It is attention seeking, immature, and something that fool Whaleoil does for pretty much those reasons.

          Live with the information that people choose to share. Of course you could persist and learn to live without access to this site.

          Before you ask. We’ll neither confirm or deny someones real identity except when requested by the person or if someone has been playing silly buggers with their identities. Playing charades may be interesting to the participants, but just drives us to tears. ]

      • chris 1.3.2
        1 December 2010 at 11:48 am

        You ever met her? Promising is not how myself or many beltway people i know would describe her. I thought she was “promising” initially, but her grasp on issues is superficial at best and she just seems to be more interested in shallow slogans than actual technology. Having someone like Ben representing Labour’s technology position would be far more useful than claire “oh wow, twitter!” curran

  2. Green Tea 2
    30 November 2010 at 12:09 pm

    “David was a Treasury analyst, political advisor, and warden at Selwyn College.”

    Sounds like yet another dreary career politician. I suppose they can re-cycle the Kris Faafoi slogans to save some campaign costs.

  3. Bryce Edwards 3
    30 November 2010 at 12:48 pm

    I’ve already heard a lot about how experienced, smart, and likeable the Clark brothers are, but haven’t seen anything at all about their actual political beliefs. So is anyone able to provide any sort of description of their political ideology? Somehow I can imagine they’re pretty socially liberal, but what about the details of their economic politics?

    • r0b 3.1
      30 November 2010 at 1:06 pm

      I’ve already heard a lot about how experienced, smart, and likeable the Clark brothers are

      Yeah me too.

      So is anyone able to provide any sort of description of their political ideology?

      David C is on line, and some of his blog posts look very encouraging:
      http://www.davidclark.org.nz/2010/07/is-the-gini-out-of-the-bottle/
      http://www.davidclark.org.nz/2010/08/killing-the-new-zealand-dream/
      http://www.davidclark.org.nz/2010/08/child-poverty-is-not-ok/

      Ben C doesn’t seem to be on line, but in one of those odd coincidences I have actually met him once in the real world. Very sharp, very committed. We didn’t exactly discuss policy but he certainly has a focus on inequality, and an open mind. Great guy.

      • Bored 3.1.1
        30 November 2010 at 2:55 pm

        Interesting rOb, they look likely lads…one wonders whether in our disfunctional and corrupted parliament these lads will be wasting their time trying to affect change? Perhaps they would be better co-opted to the fomentation of a revolutionary new and altered system.

        • r0b 3.1.1.1
          30 November 2010 at 3:10 pm

          I know what you mean Bored. But where would “the system” be if we drove away the best people? I think that reform from within is much more likely to be effective than trying to build public support for some huge change.

          • Colonial Viper 3.1.1.1.1
            30 November 2010 at 3:16 pm

            Although you wouldn’t need to build overwhelming public support for some huge change. 10% of people should be enough for major things to happen. Its getting those people energised and moving on from just ‘thinking it’ to ‘doing something about it which is a real challenge.

          • Bored 3.1.1.1.2
            30 November 2010 at 3:32 pm

            Gotta keep trying I suppose, it might “morph” given the right prodding, who knows?

      • M 3.1.2
        30 November 2010 at 10:52 pm

        r0b

        Thanks for the links, good reading – he’s got the look with those uber cool glasses – piss off Johnny there’s a new cool in town.

    • lprent 3.2
      2 December 2010 at 1:06 am

      I’ve coded with Ben previously. Pragmatic and realistic on code, somewhat socially liberal but probably no more than I am IMHO, very bright (that AI stuff was cool), obviously with a tech and industry background, and would be useful in parliament. He is also a very nice guy.

      I also indirectly worked with him on the 2008 election electronically although we never met. Pretty good political mechanic as well

      But that is from my narrow perspectives. Don’t think he’d be into bankrupting us, but he isn’t likely to constrain business by skimping on required infrastructure, both people and physical either

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