Open mike 15/12/2019

Written By: - Date published: 7:00 am, December 15th, 2019 - 69 comments
Categories: open mike - Tags:

Open mike is your post.

For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose.

The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the Policy).

Step up to the mike …

69 comments on “Open mike 15/12/2019 ”

    • Anne 1.1

      And immediately below is a load of misleading trash (courtesy of James) from a Tory leaning lackey which serves to uphold the findings of the fake advertising claims.

    • mikesh 2.1

      The lying bastards who put it about that Corbyn was anti-semitic may have had some influence on the result, but I still think the major reason for Labour's loss was the fact that Corbyn was insufficiently pro brexit. Unfortunately for him, I think, too many of his caucus were pro EU while too many from Labour's natural support base were pro brexit.

      • James 2.1.1

        indeed it was clear from all his comments and actions that he was a huge supporter of the Jewish community /sarc

        • Stuart Munro. 2.1.1.1

          He certainly treated their allegations infinitely more fairly than they deserved.

          • James 2.1.1.1.1

            And didn’t he do a good job at that. A glorious crushing defeat with even some of his own MP’s calling him an anti-Semite (but hey they know the guy – you read papers and blogs so would know better)

            • James 2.1.1.1.1.1

              Mikesh – are the lying bastards you mentioning current and former labour staffers?

              70 of them have given sworn statements that the “Labour Party is not a safe space for Jewish people”.

              And to think Stuart thinks allegations like this were treated more than fairly.

              guess the election and crushing loss indicate he should have tried a little harder huh?

              https://www.google.co.nz/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/politics/2019/dec/05/seventy-labour-staffers-give-statements-to-antisemitism-inquiry

              • mikesh

                I think the right wing, 3rd way aficionados, within the Labour establishment harbour a lot of antipathy towards him. But even so the party has achieved better results with him leading it than were achieved by either Gordon Brown or Ed Millibrand before him ( 32% in 2019, as opposed to 29% and 30% respectively; and that doesn't take into account the exceptionally good result in 2017). I suspect that he might even have won last Thursday had it not been for his party's poor handling of the brexit issue.

            • Ad 2.1.1.1.1.2

              That UK election should be the last time anyone in the English speaking with a real chance at national leadership campaigns on mass nationalization, huge taxes and otherwise full-on socialism (I'm sure it won't stop them trying).

              Even the social democratic governments such as ourselves are getting very rare around the world.

              We need to treat social democratic governments like national parks: there to protect threatened species of policy surviving from a once-grand world.

              • aom

                NZ a 'social democratic government'. Whose leg are you trying to pull?

              • Stuart Munro.

                Keep appeasing the far Right and in 20 years you'll be congratulating yourself on keeping a public health system, and 20 years after that it will be gone.

              • millsy

                If you cut past all the bluff and bluster, I think the fact is, that the Brits wanted a middle class lifestyle, and if war, privatisation and austerity were the prices to pay for it (as well as the most vulnerable to be screwed over, so be it.

            • Stuart Munro. 2.1.1.1.1.3

              He did do a good job – but he misunderstood the venality of his enemies.

              There was never any substance to the anti-Semitism allegations – they were only the stock in trade of malicious persons like yourself.

            • Bearded Git 2.1.1.1.1.4

              Under MMP Corbyn would be PM now…..Corbyn would have been PM in 2017 but for incredibly bad luck when Ruth Davidson campaigned so well for the Scottish Conservatives and won so many seats from the SNP which have now almost all returned to the SNP.

              Scotland will vote to leave/secede from the UK and stay in the European Union. Ireland will unify. Boris will preside over the break-up of the UK….some triumph that. But then we all remember him as being the worst Foreign Secretary the UK has ever had.

        • greywarshark 2.1.2.1

          Thanks BG that is a wonderful article and makes perfect sense with what I have been reading for months – years? It finishes the jig-saw and I can see the pattern outlined clearly through the fog, or are they my tears?
          .

          mikesh

          "I still think the major reason for Labour's loss was the fact that Corbyn was insufficiently pro brexit. "

          I didn't understand how you could state that so firmly, as the whole approach seemed to be about not revealing Corbyn's direction and compass points. But definition and understanding of the actual situation comes to me from Luke Goodall's Sky News extract from BG link:

          Jeremy Corbyn has quietly committed the Labour Party to everything Remainers wanted and were calling for only a few months ago: a government which would extend Article 50, then go to the country pledging a referendum on Britain’s exit deal, with Remain on the ballot paper.

          “Mr Corbyn had no end of political slurry deposited on his head for refusing to make such a commitment hitherto. You might think that those same people who were pouring it would be jubilant. Yet their response was curiously muted.”

          And the difficulties for Labour exponents were outlined by the writer on The Consciousness of Sheep (see Facebook):

          Put simply, in order to form a government in the UK parliament, Labour must win back its traditional working class support in those constituencies that delivered the biggest margins in favour of leaving the EU. However, the activists that Labour needs to get out on the doorsteps to win these constituencies tend to be fervently pro-EU. To come out in support of either position is to lose the supporters of the other, and thus to cede power to the Tories; who will inevitably deliver the worst Brexit settlement of all. Labour’s only hope is to fudge their Brexit policy until the next election is won.”

          As the bard put it: What a piece of work is Man.

  1. Josef 3

    Classic “it’s them against us!” socialism just doesn’t speak to as many people as it used to.

    Labour people want to talk about malign oligarchs conspiring against them for personal gain, and it sounds increasingly like conspirowhacky stuff from the more tinfoil hat wearing recesses of the internet. Labour people talk about moral duties to fight climate change, fight imperialism, fight islamophobia, and people more worried about layoffs at work are left scratching their head and wondering WHY is this what labour cares about now?

    And then they see anyone who questions the new priorities getting rounded on and called the most vile names. It's not the behaviour of a team that people want to be a part of, it's not what people want to see from the government.

    There’s also a really distasteful saviour complex in evidence. Labour has become the party of trendy liberal elites with degrees, who expect the simple worker bees to trust in their goodness and greatness and keep on voting for the old Labour brand, even as Labour is focussing more and more on esoteric woke issues with little relevance to those whose main concern is keeping their jobs.

    John Key tapped into this, for every left person who “didn’t trust him” there were 1.2 people who reminded him of a good boss or a successful colleague, and he made people want to get on his team. Corbyn’s rhetoric is just loser, victim, misery, grievance, and that’s a hard sell. So far Jacinda Ardern appears to have learned some of Key’s lessons well in that regard.

    [You appear to be new here, although you look familiar, and you may have missed the instructional guidelines in the OP. Moving this to OM until I know whom we’re dealing with]

    [TheStandard: A moderator moved this comment to Open Mike as being off topic or irrelevant in the post it was made in. Be more careful in future.]

    • Stuart Munro. 3.1

      Malign oligarchs like Murdoch certainly exist and their activities go a long way to explain the kind of wretched plonkers who become UK conservatives & NZ Gnat MPs.

  2. Paaparakauta 4

    Robots Are Killing The Millennial Worker

    "There is no doubt that a wave of automation is about to be unleashed on economies worldwide.

    In fact, the impact of automation on the labor market has become more of a political issue now than it ever has, with its impact on the labor force being cited as one of the main causes for the election of leaders like U.S. President Donald Trump and Italy’s Matteo Salvini, according to a new Bloomberg op-ed by Ferdinando Giugliano.

    https://www.zerohedge.com/personal-finance/pay-attention-robots-are-killing-millennial-worker

  3. Sacha 5

    How the US righties ended up in Putin's embrace:

    https://www.salon.com/2019/12/14/russia-and-the-republicans-how-vladimir-putin-got-an-american-subsidiary/

    How did we get here? London School of Economics professor Anne Applebaum, writing in this month’s Atlantic, traces the collapse of the Republican Party into Russia’s arms to Pat Buchanan, ironically a former aide to Russia-hater Richard Nixon.

    Buchanan's books “Death of a Superpower” and “The Death of the West” described America’s descent into “a sexual revolution of easy divorce, rampant promiscuity, pornography, homosexuality, feminism, abortion, same-sex marriage, euthanasia, assisted suicide — the displacement of Christian values by Hollywood values.” Applebaum writes that “Buchanan has come to admire the Russian president because he is ‘standing up for traditional values against Western cultural elites.’”

    • Paaparakauta 5.1

      Applebaum has also published on 'red famine' and 'gulag'. One can't argue with history, but it could be described less emotively and put in broader context.

    • Incognito 5.2

      One could argue that rampant hyper-individualism coupled with no-bounds hedonism and so-called personal freedom and responsibility has led to a leading principle of Western culture that more or less prescribes that it is ok to fuck oneself and screw over others. In other words, what people do in their own home is their own personal business and nobody else’s, least of all the State’s. If they want to use drugs, own MSSAs, go online to read/consume whatever filth they can find, spew any kind of filth online (freedom of speech) or in public places (AKA places paid for by tax- and/or rate-payers), et cetera, they should be allowed to do so because it is their human right and freedom. The so-called free market principle goes lock-step with this because nobody is forced to accept any transaction and if they do, it is caveat emptor. This extends to externalisation as well as screwing over the environment because this is virtually defenceless. This behaviour even intrudes into the sex lives of some where boundaries of acceptance and consent have become even more blurry. At least, that seems to be the reasoning of some. The apparent moral conservatism of the leadership in Russia, China, and Singapore, to name a few, is a logical reaction to this decay but is it the answer?

  4. joe90 6

    And the bullies are making hay.

    https://twitter.com/GretaThunberg/status/1205863994881400832

    edit:

    SV SYNONYMS FOR STANDING AGAINST THE WALL
    Found 5 synonyms in 1 groups
    1Meaning: interrogation
    interview the wall against exam exam grill question
    Synonyms for posing

    https://synonymer.woxikon.se/sv/st%C3%A4lla%20mot%20v%C3%A4ggen

    https://en.bab.la/dictionary/swedish-english/st%C3%A4lla-n%C3%A5gon-mot-v%C3%A4ggen

  5. Jenny How to get there 7


    The Last Cop?

    Latest news reports coming out from Madrid Spain is that the COP25 talks have stalled.

    …..Most countries agreed on the guidelines, and negotiators have been reluctant to name the holdouts. But on Friday, Carlos Manuel Rodríguez, Costa Rica’s minister for energy and environment, called out the United States, Brazil, and Australia as the parties thwarting closure on the issue.

    https://www.vox.com/2019/12/13/21020192/cop25-greta-thunberg-un-climate-change-meeting-madrid

    The UN COP negotiations are reminiscent of the League of Nations negotiations over German and Italian fascist aggression in Europe and North Africa, which also stalled over lack of international agreement and commitment..

    What is required to break this international deadlock is unilateral action from at least one country.

    It's called leadership.

    In my opinion one country, this country, is better placed than many others to take this lead.

    All politics is pressure.

    Our close geographical, political, cultural and historical links to one of the bigger hold outs, Australia, makes us well place to set an example that couldn't be ignored across the Tasman.

    Even inside our parliament there is deadlock from taking decisive binding action.

    This parliamentary deadlock is reminiscent of the deadlock inside the British Parliament over German aggression. One back bench MP who who had won his seat as an independent as the only MP for his Constitutional Party, this minority of one, refused to keep quiet and decried the fascist threat at every chance.

    Its called leadership.

    In my opinion one party, the Green Party, is better placed than even Churchill was to take this lead.

    • Sacha 7.1

      That seems a very romantic notion of leadership.

      • Dennis Frank 7.1.1

        More confused than romantic. The GP, operating as a minority of one in parliament, leading by constantly decrying the global warming threat? The average voter: `yeah, we know already, tell us something new'.

        "What is required to break this international deadlock is unilateral action from at least one country. It's called leadership. In my opinion one country, this country, is better placed than many others to take this lead… Our close geographical, political, cultural and historical links to one of the bigger hold outs, Australia, makes us well place to set an example that couldn't be ignored across the Tasman."

        Aussies normally ignore our examples. Why would they suddenly do a u-turn and get in behind? She wants "decisive binding action" and is suggesting the Greens will produce that by breaking ranks with the coalition govt, taking a dissident public stand. Even if they do that while waving a Greta Thunberg doll threateningly at the other parties, I don't see how other countries would get bound into decisive action on climate change as a logical consequence.

    • Ad 7.2

      I recall there was a lot of criticism of David Skilling a decade ago when he suggested New Zealand should be "fast followers" in climate change response.

      This outcome in Spain is horrifying.

      But if New Zealand had tried to be more of a global leader in this diplomatic area, this kind of massive diplomatic failure shows we would have become as exposed to international great power retaliation as we have been for decades since we deregulated into free trade in the late 1980s. Maybe Skilling was right.

    • Ad 7.3

      What did the Greens get in the last UK election?

      Did their share grow as Labour's collapsed?

    • pat 7.4

      "But Mr Meyer commented: "The latest version of the Paris Agreement decision text put forward by the Chilean presidency is totally unacceptable. It has no call for countries to enhance the ambition of their emissions reduction commitments.

      "If world leaders fail to increase ambition in the lead up to next year's climate summit in Glasgow, they will make the task of meeting the Paris Agreement's well below 2C temperature limitation goal – much less the 1.5 degrees Celsius goal – almost impossible."

      https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/world/405516/low-ambition-coalition-puts-un-climate-talks-in-question

      "New Zealand's Climate Change Minister James Shaw said he was disappointed nothing was likely to come from Summit"

  6. infused 8

    https://www.stuff.co.nz/environment/climate-news/118179976/wellingtons-high-water-use-is-bad-news-for-the-environment-and-climate-change

    There are 10,000 undocumented leaks in Wellington since the earthquake. I'm on a few boards so I know this. It is not public knowledge as they cannot find them. The same issue as buildings which are still unsafe and slowly being made public as to not scare anyone.

    It's amazing what's being hidden from everyday people.

  7. Dennis Frank 9

    The Observer’s political editor accompanied "the impressive Labour candidate Karen Davis" on her campaign in Labour's target seat, Norwich North. "I approached a man in his garden on the same Norwich estate who said: “I have voted Labour all my life but I can’t stand Corbyn and won’t vote for him.” https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/dec/14/i-saw-just-how-many-voters-were-hostile-to-jeremy-corbyn

    Labour MP Neil Coyle reports after campaigning in his Bermondsey and Old Southwark constituency: “There were people who said they knew Boris Johnson was a liar and a cheat but they still preferred him over our leader."

    "He and his team talked to 10,000 people during the campaign and kept a record of what each of them said. The two reasons most often given by those who decided against Labour were its policy on Brexit and dislike of the leader. “Dislike of Corbyn came top,” added Coyle, who was one of the Labour survivors on election night. He retained his south London seat with a big – though reduced – majority."

    "Journalists who went on the campaign trail were struck constantly by the force of anti-Corbyn feeling on doorsteps." So, if Boris is a populist, Jeremy is an unpopulist. I thought he seemed reasonable & well-intentioned, but that could be due to the distance effect. Exposure up close may be informing the Brits about his defects.

    "One Labour MP told me on Friday morning, after details of Labour’s catastrophic defeat were known: “We all knew what was coming, just not quite how bad it would be. We didn’t want to allow the Corbynistas and Momentum to blame us and point the finger at us afterwards, so there had to be an unspoken agreement to deny it.”"

    "The Observer’s pollsters Opinium have revealed their own analysis of the reasons people rejected Labour: 43% cited the leadership, 17% its policy on Brexit, and 12% its economic policies. Among Labour defectors – those who voted Labour in 2017 but didn’t this time – 37% mentioned the leadership, 21% Brexit and 6% its economic policies."

    This antipathy effect looks very widespread, and Jeremy could be pioneering unpopulism as an influential political trend. Charisma deficit only part of the prescription. I suspect the key syndrome is leftist arrogance: `the people need to think like me, as I keep telling them’.

    • Anne 9.1

      Very interesting. Thank-you Dennis Frank.

      I'm still of the view that the 'dislike of Corbyn' was a reaction to the enormously successful campaign waged against him by personal and political opponents, media opponents and of course the ultra-conservative British establishment.

      I took time out in recent weeks to listen to some of his media interviews and he came across as a reasonable, mild mannered person who talked a lot of sense – the antithesis of how he has been portrayed. In today's political climate, such individuals are regarded as weak, indecisive, verging on communist ideology (which is utter nonsense), and they must be banished from ever gaining control of the treasury benches. It is power by the few over the many – just like our perennial political enemies, Russia, China et al – and the ultimate outcome is much the same.

      Michael Joseph Savage would not have lasted five minutes in today's climate, which is an indication of the depths of dishonesty, deceit and thuggish behaviour western societies are now engaging in.

      • Dennis Frank 9.1.1

        I agree. It's a question of the extent to which voters form impressions in accord with the intent of media manipulation. I had a professional career crafting such propaganda so I have an insider's view of how it works on the psyche.

        Despite that I reported the summation due to getting a sense that the role played by perception of him was having a substantial grass-roots effect, and there seemed a likelihood that some kind of shakespearean character flaw was operating, causing mass resonance in the UK electorate.

    • Ad 9.2

      The left need to accept what the great voters said: they really, really didn't like Jeremy Corbyn. You can call that a media conspiracy if you like.

      In 2019 Jeremy Corbyn has been a total catastrophe for UK Labour.

      • SPC 9.2.1

        Yeah Labour MP's who did not support Corbyn as leader and said so, say they got feedback from their electorate agreeing with them.

        A Labour caucus that pressured Corbyn to back their pro Remain position say he was the reason they lost seats in pro Brexit Midlands and North.

        One thing was clear, the economic policies were not the problem.

      • millsy 9.2.2

        You are so right. The worst thing is, the chances of anything that is remotely left leaning have just evaporated right before our very eyes. Sanders/Warren's chances in the USA have just been tossed out the window, and AOC is probably going to be a one term wonder. Medicare for All is going to be off the table in the USA for at least a generation. Even Jacinda and her team will be a lot more cautious going into 2020.

        Corbyn completely fucked the left. That will be his legacy for the Labour Party.

        Next time the Blairites are accused of straying too far from the party's roots, they will throw this right in our faces.

        • SPC 9.2.2.1

          And yet it was their their Brexit position that cost Labour a lot of seats

          Very few people cited any problem with the more left wing Labour manifesto.

          The right and the Blairites want left wing leadership and policy discredited, yet they did not go after Corbyn on policy.

          So why would anyone think that the left has been harmed by this defeat? Or that Blairites will win back total control of the party?

      • mauī 9.2.3

        What a load of BS, by your logic then Boris is incredibly popular and that's why he won.

      • Anne 9.2.4

        a) The voters are not great. They're ordinary folk. Some good, some bad.

        b) They didn't like Corbyn because they had nothing but negative media stories to go on.

        c) So easy to claim "catastrophe" after the event.

        d) It wasn't a catastrophe anyway. Disappointing yes but the cards were always stacked against them.

        e) Under an MMP type system they would probably now have a Labour led govt.

    • SPC 9.3

      We all knew what was coming

      Yet they forced Corbyn into a pro Remain position, did they not know this would cost them seats, or did they not care while Corbyn was there to take the blame?

    • Fireblade 10.1

      Fuck me. Hours later and Bridges is still on twitter trying to justify his lies to Nigel Latta.

      It shows how childish and insecure Simon Bridges really is. He's an embarrassment.

  8. Incognito 11

    Simon’s calculator has blown a fuse and please can somebody teach him how to do spreadsheets properly because it is an absolute shambles.

    https://www.national.org.nz/the_fiscal_hole_national_predicted_all_along

    • Graeme 11.1

      Thanks for the heads up, I'll make sure I've swallowed my coffee before he tries to explain that on Morning Report tomorrow morning.

  9. joe90 12

    Released 40 years ago.

  10. greywarshark 13

    Slavoj Zizek is stirring up the exhausted discourse on Trump and Brexit.

  11. SPC 14

    A seemingly confused approach is being advocated here.

    https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/118174774/pension-for-kids-could-level-income-inequality-between-young-and-old

    Arguing that universal super approach has reduced old age poverty, then advocating the end of that to afford universal support to reduce child poverty is asking a few questions about the logic of the proponents (the reduction in old age poverty was in fact prior home ownership or access to state housing and the availability of an aged based retirement income).

    Lower rates of home ownership and the current lack of state housing is changing this dynamic.

    There is also unaddressed poverty among

    those unable to work 18-65 (because of disability and living on $270 a week without home ownership)

    those unable to work on SB (not eligible for ACC),

    those over 55 finding jobs hard to find.

    sole parents because of low benefits (paying back grant out of benefits when TD is not paid back while income is that low) and high abatement regimes

    working poverty caused by high rent costs

    That said I do want more resources into health and education (more and better paid staff) and state housing as a focus for government with its finite resources.

    But I can agree in better targeted income support by reducing super cost and transferring it to those in need. Means testing is one way to do this, and most of those who work past the age of 65 have no need for super.

    • KJT 14.1

      Agree with all but means testing. Super, family support, unemployment benefit and disability should be as of right and universal.

      Targeting is inefficient expensive and often inconsistent.

      Asset testing causes Poverty traps when people have to sell built up assets, to get welfare. I remember the builder who had to sell his site caravan.

      It is another attack on workers in favour of tax dodging, capital gains tax earners.

      Welfare should be on personal position. As in Germany, unemployment as of right and retraining for another job, is regardless of assets, and previous employment..

      We do it here with ACC. Payments do not depend on assets, but on income. Though payments should have an upper ceiling for really high incomes.

      By all means claw most of it back on high incomes with a higher progressive, tax rate.

    • A 14.2

      Agree with every you said SPC.

      We must have super means tested asap and those with health needs prioritised in our system.

      • KJT 14.2.1

        Anyone claiming to be "left" advocating means testing of super is a fool.

        The only reason we still have it, is because the rich get it too.

        If you want your grandchildren to still have super available, don't give the right wing an incentive to get rid of it. Which is inevitable, if they can offer tax cuts, by removing something the rich no longer have an interest in.

        You see the same effect with private school users, happy to defund, and destroy, State schools, because it doesn't affect, them.

  12. greywarshark 15

    Macron the French President spells out EU requirements in English for Boorish's and his rag-tag gypsies, benefit.

    “If the British prime minister and the British parliament want an ambitious trade deal, they know where the European standards are … The more they are attracted to reducing standards – on climate, social standards or anything else – the more they walk away from the European market, the more they will be away from us. The more ambitious the trade deal, the more we need regulatory harmonisation."

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/dec/13/brexit-eu-leaders-call-for-swift-ratification-after-tory-victory

  13. Fireblade 16

    The National Party wants to fine cyclists who don't use cycle lanes.

    How ridiculous. Next they will announce it would be policed by a Strike Force Raptor division comprising of Young Nats riding tricycles with flashing lights on their heads.

    https://www.tvnz.co.nz/one-news/new-zealand/national-party-wants-impose-fines-cyclists-refuse-use-cycleways

  14. A 17

    Good to see. Pity ACC will drag this on for a decade or more. Putting them on the prayer lists.

    https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/118004926/family-of-migrant-worker-who-died-on-the-job-seeks-compensation

    The family of an under-the-table migrant worker who died on the job is seeking compensation from ACC.

    Unite Union is assisting Du Xiangli after her husband Yu Xingming fell to his death at a residential construction site in Auckland.

    The union's national director, Mike Treen, said Yu's family should be eligible for an ACC payout over the death.

    • KJT 17.1

      And his employer should pay ACC, to make up for all the levies they dodged, leaving this poor mans family with nothing.

The server will be getting hardware changes this evening starting at 10pm NZDT.
The site will be off line for some hours.