Open mike 18/10/2023

Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, October 18th, 2023 - 66 comments
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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 …

66 comments on “Open mike 18/10/2023 ”

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  1. Adrian 1
    18 October 2023 at 7:29 am

    So Isreal is bombing hospitals now.

  2. Rolling-on-Gravel 2
    18 October 2023 at 8:19 am

    https://www.stuff.co.nz/pou-tiaki/133132419/election-result-leaves-disabled-community-feeling-anxious-about-policies-of-incoming-national-act-government

    Shame on these who has voted for ACT & NAT knowing this might happen. Shame on you for doing this.

    • Mike the Lefty 2.1
      18 October 2023 at 8:23 am

      People like that don't experience shame.

      • Rolling-on-Gravel 2.1.1
        18 October 2023 at 8:24 am

        Nevertheless, it should be said. Just so it is on the record.

        • SapphireGem 2.1.1.1
          18 October 2023 at 10:52 am

          Yes, RoG, I saw that article yesterday. It is really concerning, as is the fact, as mentioned in the article, "Stuff reached out to National for comment but did not receive a response." The lack of responsiveness about a policy position concerning a significantly at-risk group is really concerning. And in case anyone suggests that National is too busy with coalition negotiations – when a policy concerns a vulnerable group in society, you make the time to respond. At least ACT did that!

    • gsays 2.2
      18 October 2023 at 12:11 pm

      For your elucidation. A very interesting and surprising 23 minutes.

      https://www.rnz.co.nz/programmes/the-detail/story/2018909519/disability-is-this-year-s-forgotten-issue

      Rest assured the political 'blind spot' that disabled find themselves is across the whole political spectrum.

      • Rolling-on-Gravel 2.2.1
        18 October 2023 at 9:11 pm

        Gsays,

        I am already aware of all this otherwise I would not have said all this.

        The thing is, as a disabled person, I'd rather be talking with whatever left-wing government in power than right-wing government in power because they are more likely to economically benefit us even if they are extremely frustrating at times. We can rattle against them safely compared to if we rattle against right-wing governments because there's more of an element of economic danger in it.

  3. Belladonna 3
    18 October 2023 at 8:24 am

    UPDATE: Talbot Mills informs me that the poll that was reported by the NZ Herald as internal polling for Labour was “wrong”. I accept them at their word, so that should not be treated as an accurate reflection of their polling. this of course raises serious questions about why media prominently reported on an unpublished internal poll, that had “wrong numbers” according to the polling company that did them.

    https://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/2023/10/how_the_polls_look_vs_provisional_results.html

    I know, Kiwiblog and Farrar are anathema to many Standardistas.

    However, this is a really serious issue.

    If (and, on the face of it, there is no reason to disbelieve him), Farrar is correct and Talbot Mills have indeed told him that the results 'leaked' to the press were wrong – this is really serious.

    There has been much discussion on TS about the way that polls and the messages that the electorate take from them, change voting patterns.

    In this case, it appears that 'incorrect' results were deliberately leaked (it can only be deliberate, since there was no attempt to correct them) – in an attempt to change the political narrative.

    Talbot Mills did not address this at the time (it was up to their client to correct the mis-information) and have only come forward now – because it was likely to reflect badly on their ability to poll accurately (i.e. had a business impact on them).

    Should the media be reporting on 'leaked' polls at all?

    • AB 3.1
      18 October 2023 at 9:04 am

      No polls, leaked or unleaked, correct or incorrect, should be published for 12 months before an election. None. They are becoming a propaganda tool and have had a catastrophic effect on the quality of political journalism.

    • Ad 3.2
      18 October 2023 at 9:10 am

      Polls are just a line of coke for campaign managers and a few media pundits.

    • infused 3.3
      18 October 2023 at 9:21 am

      A lot of what the media do around politics stinks. Money shouldn't be given to them, ever, for one thing. Or if it is, it's via some separate entity that is impartial.

  4. Ad 4
    18 October 2023 at 8:43 am

    Shoutout to departing Member of Parliament Andrew Little.

    In a typically honourable move he has pulled out of the list before being sworn in again.

    This guy had a massive career in the unions for E Tu, and fought many battles for workers throughout his pre-Parliamentary career.

    I first saw him up close in Labour when he spoke at the annual conference and he rocked up to the podium in a Huffer sweatshirt rather than a suit. Back in 1999 that was pretty cool and unusual.

    It was his selfless act to move aside in mid 2017 during the campaign to bring in Ardern that actually stopped us losing and started us winning again. She was precisely what we all needed at the time. He remained a strong part of the Cabinet from the government that formed.

    He did an outstanding piece of work on the Waitangi paepae speaking solely in te reo Maori in 2020. It really rocked what is otherwise a tough crowd. That takes a lot of courage and practise.

    But for me the most farsighted thing he did was to re-unify the health system. When the cabinet paper went up it was proposed that there would be a series of large aggregated regions that decreased the number of health boards but did not unify them nationally. Even if the Maori Health Authority is indeed abolished, what will remain was his own decision to form a single national entity and greatly scale back the Ministry of Health into a small monitoring agency.

    While that doesn't take the full step of eradicating the corporatised buffer of boards between agencies and the democratic order, he took it a long, long way.

    The other really useful thing is that at only 58 he has plenty of gas left int he tank and will go on to further great things. I would not be surprised to see his name in charge of a major Crown entity as Maharey and Cullen did, or go on to work in a significant global labour institution.

    I don't think Andrew Little will be lost to New Zealand but he is indeed lost to the Labour caucus. Useful to reviving the caucus while they are down, it's also a huge loss of talent and performance who represented the labour movement in so much of what he did.

    Go well Andrew.

    • Patricia Bremner 4.1
      18 October 2023 at 9:20 am

      Thank you Ad. I see Andrew as a real labour member. He always remained in touch with the grass roots. I hope he has many happy games of golf with his son. His Christmas cards are in our box of special things. Go well Andrew.

    • observer 4.2
      18 October 2023 at 9:38 am

      A good example of Michael Cullen's line that governments and Ministers get things done and the public simply bank it.

      As Justice Minister, Little piloted the abortion law reform through Parliament. It is now locked in, and even an anti-abortion PM with many ultra-conservative MPs has had to promise that there is no going back. (He'll be toast if he breaks that promise).

      The status quo ("abortion's a crime but leave it alone") has been replaced by a new status quo ("not a crime and we leave that alone"). Major achievement, shifting the ground, and yet … barely acknowledged now.

      Thanks Andrew.

      https://www.theguardian.com/world/commentisfree/2020/mar/20/this-week-we-brought-new-zealands-abortion-laws-into-the-21st-century

    • Mac1 4.4
      18 October 2023 at 10:19 am

      “It was his selfless act to move aside in mid 2017”.

      Yes, indeed, Ad, what I honour Andrew Little for as well.

      He taught three great lessons, there. Firstly, that personal ambition and ego must be subject to reason and the greater good.

      Second, that we have to all recognise the time for us to stand down.

      Third, that our choices for who represent us as politicians must also be made by our recognising the same qualities of humility, selfless regard for others, willingness to learn, human decency and altruism that Andrew Little has and displays.

      That a Pakeha man, busy as he is, had the energy and drive to learn te reo rangatira is an example to us all.

      Ngā mihi nui ki a Anaru.

    • SapphireGem 4.5
      18 October 2023 at 10:32 am

      As Minister of Justice, Andrew Little also inflation adjusted Teina Pora's compensation payment for wrongful conviction and over 20 years' imprisonment, meaning Pora got almost a million extra dollars. https://www.beehive.govt.nz/release/teina-pora-compensation-adjustment

      Little's predecessor in the Minister of Justice role, National's Amy Adams, wouldn't make the inflation adjustment, a decision Little described at the time as "niggardly, quibbling and miserable." https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/andrew-little-the-renaissance-man/TUSGNZZTWFNWSFXAVAXLBAEBCU/

    • gsays 4.6
      18 October 2023 at 12:17 pm

      I would add my voice to the chorus of those praising his efforts to do with Pike River.

      Those that are close to the issue, who hold him in high regard, confirm my view from afar.

      As to being Health Minister, this time I will follow my Nana's advice, if you can't say anything nice don't say anything at all.

  5. Ad 5
    18 October 2023 at 9:12 am

    Looking forward to the Republicans coating themselves in sticky brown glory trying to elect Jim Jordan and Speaker.

  6. weka 6
    18 October 2023 at 10:27 am

    For the gender identity people who say that everyone knows what sex is and no-one is trying to deny biological sex, here's the UK Green Party's Queerphobia Guidance document.

    Transphobic behaviour typically includes actions which convey a view that —

    ● trans women are not “real women”, are men and/or are male people;

    https://drive.google.com/file/d/1bIvJ1MYZyt-sLwnGUzL6WCLSuL7T7AHM/view

    While I agree there are social issues with saying to transsexual women they are not real women, there is no rationale that I can see that should stop people from being able to talk about TW as being male, especially in a political context (eg feminists being able to talk about male pattern violence by TW). Male is the word we use to describe biological sex.

    A writer at the Critic wrote a piece on the guidance,

    When I asked one of the authors how they could justify their claim that trans women are female, I was pointed towards a website. Nothing there provided any evidence that humans, uniquely amongst mammals, are able to spontaneously change their own sex.

    https://thecritic.co.uk/nowt-so-queerphobic-as-folk/

    I've definitely come across and talked with people who do in fact believe that TW are biologically female. Some believe that sex is a colonial construct, or that sex is a spectrum and therefore TW can be female. I think they are in the minority.

    The problem here is the larger group of people who insist that female and male are words of identity rather than material reality and won't acknowledge this is what they are doing.

    This makes it impossible to know what the UK Greens mean. Are they trying to establish that there is no such thing as biological sex? Are they trying to downplay sex and establish gender identity as the primary way in which we understand sex/gender? And in doing so want to co-opt language to their politics? Are they just really confused?

    For context UK Greens have a history of seriously bad judgement on gender identity (google Aimee Challenor, or defining women as non men).

  7. Obtrectator 7
    18 October 2023 at 11:05 am

    Oh what clever little kiddies you are – but we mustn't annoy Daddy or he'll send you to bed early.

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/oct/17/they-challenged-the-communist-monopoly-vietnam-regime-turns-on-its-climate-champions

  8. Mike the Lefty 8
    18 October 2023 at 11:22 am

    A few days after the election I thought I would post my thoughts about how the parties performed and what were their successes (and failures).

    1. National – obviously the winner on the night so you have to say it was a successful campaign but it actually wasn't the rampage that they are claiming. Their overall majority if you exclude NZ First will be 1-2 seats, which is actually an uncomfortably thin majority, whilst in 2020 Labour had an overall majority. Was it a good campaign? Depends on your definition of good. It was bought success, certainly. National had a huge amount of money donated by big business and big farming but their messages were confused and contradictory, although the voters obviously pretended not to notice. because they were so pissed off with Labour.
    2. Labour – they knew quite early on that they were down for defeat but in the face of a death sentence decided to go out fighting and their last week of campaigning was probably their best, Hipkins showed he could come out swinging but the damage was done by then. Labour can possibly take a little heart that they prevented the NACTs from achieving a comfortable majority but little else. Labour's message was clear, but it always looked like a reaction to National, rather than an innovation so the voters scoffed in derision.
    3. The Greens – unquestionably a good campaign for the Greens. They identified that Wellington was their prime target – aided immensely by the retirement of two long-serving popular Labour MPs – and won a solid backing from erstwhile Labour voters frustrated with their party's pandering to the centre and neglect of good old fashioned democratic socialist values. Their messages were clear and uncompromising and appealed to a new generation of voters who believe that climate change is the biggest threat to mankind.

    ACT – a campaign that threatened to outshine National in its early days but in retrospect it probably peaked too soon and Seymour's howdy doody style began to wear a bit thin. The party's obvious problems with rebellious candidates and its concentration on populist vote fodder policies made it look like a National tailgater rather than a party of fresh ideas. Although outwardly ACT will be crowing like Peter Pan, privately they will think they deserved to have ended up with a few more seats than they actually did.

    Te Pati Maori -the best and most organised campaign that they have ever mounted. They avoided the in-your-face confrontational style of previous campaigns and probably won considerable swinging left voters with their provocative, but also very accessible, policies done in a way that was somehow both uniquely Maori but also very accessible to non-Maori.

    NZ First: You can't deny the success of a man who has once again come back from the political wilderness to lead a party to the brink of kingmaker status. A remarkable campaign in that Winston seemed to promise both everything and nothing at the same time but a lot of voters seemed to love him for that. His charisma and penchant for populist policy repackaging enabled him to pinch the less extreme cooker vote and his was the most successful "no" vote of the election.

    The Opportunities Party: Lacking the resources and key public figures of the other parties it was always going to be a struggle for them to get their message heard between Labour's superficial optimism and National's calculated negativity and they were subsequently quickly banished from the voters' minds as also-rans. They needed to have a significant voter base in more places than just Ilam but they didn't.

    The cookers parties: NZ Loyal, NZ Freedoms, Democracy NZ and the rest of the nutters: scored only about 2% of the party vote in total, a significant proportion of it coming from rural North Island electorates. They would have done better but for their own delusions of grandeur and in the end a lot of their supporters jumped ship for NZ First.

    Women's Rights Party: a very new party campaigning on a brass razoo in the midst of a big swing to the right, this was not an opportune time for them. They may be one to watch for the next election if they stay together.

    That's my take on it.

    I welcome comment and criticism;

    • Bearded Git 8.1
      18 October 2023 at 11:32 am

      It was National's worst share of the vote since 2005. It will be interesting to see the final percentages.

      This election was not a disaster for the Left as is being painted by the MSM. Indeed assuming the special votes add to the Left's tally of seats, Winston could, if he was in the mood, install a left-wing government, albeit with a tiny majority.

    • gsays 8.2
      18 October 2023 at 12:25 pm

      Hard to disagree with much of it.

      I do have a challenge for you. A less devisive term for "less extreme cooker".

      As was suggested to Barfly, they may well be yr comrades should Luxon decide to let Seymour have his way with his Te Tiriti referendum.

      • Mike the Lefty 8.2.1
        18 October 2023 at 12:59 pm

        My description of the elements of the parliamentary ground occupation who actually had genuine gripes, not just a good opportunity to throw their excrement and bricks at police and screech out their hatred of organised society.

      • The Lone Haranguer 8.2.2
        18 October 2023 at 4:07 pm

        As one of the Top voters I know we lost the battle on Saturday, but maybe one day we will win a war.

        Given that politics is about winning, and transforming your ideas into legislation, I would suggest that the biggest winner was the Nats, and the biggest loser was ACT.

        The Nats they have survived generations by rarely ever rocking the boat, and Luxon is a moderate leader of that type. Remember, Key brought TPM into the Government "fold" tho he didnt actually need the numbers. What he needed was their ideas (and cynically), some brown faces.

        Meanwhile, ACT has nowhere else to go, and love them or hate them, they arent going to bite off the National arm that feeds them. So Luxon has them cornered. They are way past the early days (Prebble and co) where they declared that staying on the opposition side was best for them, and that the baubles werent a prize they sought.

        • Phillip ure 8.2.2.1
          18 October 2023 at 9:03 pm

          I read the top policies…and there was some good stuff in there..

          Kinda demeaning tho' how manji prostrated himself before luxon.. promising undying support..if luxon would do a deal with him..like they did for seymour..

          Kinda mixed messages there..eh..?

    • James Simpson 8.3
      18 October 2023 at 2:59 pm

      I find it baffling that National has out polled Labour in 5 of the past 6 elections. Why is this the case when National never does a damn thing for the benefit of the country.

      For me that is a real concern because it is difficult to form a government when you are not the largest party.

      In the MMP environment the second largest party has only lead the government once (2017). This shows it is very difficult to cobble a government together when the leading party from a block is polling in the 20s or low 30s. This election is a perfect example. The right probably won't be able to do it on their own, but there is next to no chance of the left forming a government.

      Labour's core support base needs to increase by 5 to 10%. Just look at their less than impressive support since 2005:

      2005: 41.1%

      2008: 33.99%

      2011: 27.48%

      2014: 25.13%

      2017: 36.89%

      2020; 50.01%

      2023: 26.81%

      Other than 2005 and 2020, Labour has underperformed and something needs to change.

      • Craig H 8.3.1
        18 October 2023 at 3:15 pm

        A lot of people do quite well out of the status quo and major change is scary. Throw in fearmongering at all attempts at change once real proposals appear, and it becomes very hard.

      • ianmac 8.3.2
        18 October 2023 at 4:02 pm

        THe National Party has kept its factions in-House. Thus the Christian right and the Denialists etc are just hidden in the folds. 2023; 50+2 =52seats.

        Where as Labour has Leftists in plain sight. Therefore you could read Labour-Green-MP as one blob in order to compare with National blob. 2023; 34+14+4= 52 seats

        I am glad that I can see where the Left factions are. I am suspicious of the factions hidden in National. (O'conner was just one to be exposed and look what happened to him.

      • In Vino 8.3.3
        18 October 2023 at 6:56 pm

        For my part, I have never forgiven Labour for their Rogernomics betrayal. They have since pretended to revert to the left, but in fact, they never overturn the neo-liberal plumbing that has been built in. All they do is stop the neo-liberal flow. They never really change the plumbing to stop the next right-wing govt from making further inroads on society. Both Ardern and Chippy ran true to this form. Why would I ever give either of them my party vote?

    • Vivie 8.4
      18 October 2023 at 6:50 pm

      People blaming Chris Hipkins for Labour's election loss (not that you are Mike) seem to have a simplistic perspective. Evidently most people weren't voting for a wealth tax, or a tax exemption from the first $10,000 to $30,000 of income, because more would have voted for Te Pāti Māori or the Green Party if these were the main policies concerning people. Clearly many people voted against their own interests.

      Huge donations assisted National with a relentless attack campaign against Labour.

      "If we subtract negative posts from positive posts, about 63 percent more Labour posts included positive self-presentation than negative attacks. In comparison, when we do the same for National, it had a net positivity score of just 5.5 percent". https://www.wgtn.ac.nz/news/2023/10/negative-campaiging-in-the-2023-new-zealand-election

      Resentment towards Labour seems to have originated from the COVID-19 pandemic. Some media colluded with National and manipulated people into feelings of anger at being expected to comply with Labour's successful Covid minimisation strategies, for the safety of others. Constant commentary that people felt angry resulted in people feeling angry. Media repeatedly gave entitled individuals opportunities to complain about their individual circumstances.

      National, ACT and NZ First also appealed to many people's deep-seated racism, by falsely insinuating or overtly claiming that Labour's policies advantaged Maori at the expense of other NZers.

      Even though economists criticised as unworkable National's plans to cut taxes and sell houses to overseas buyers to pay towards the tax cuts, people's resentment overrode their willingness to see National's tax plan for the con job it was/is.

      https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/election-2023/497974/economists-analysis-rubbishes-national-s-foreign-buyers-tax-numbers

      After repeated challenging of National's tax plan: https://thespinoff.co.nz/live-updates/05-10-2023/nicola-willis-confirms-only-3000-households-will-get-full-250-a-fortnight-tax-cut – an example of resentful, oppositional behaviour: many people knowingly voting for a party that has lied by omission and implication about the supposed benefits of a major policy.

      Even though it was clearly explained that overseas buyers purchasing NZ properties would likely increase house prices, related expenses and rental costs, evidently many people knowingly voted against their own interests, presumably as an irrational action to punish Labour.

      As Chris Trotter commented prior to the election: "That so many of us are willing to see so much pain inflicted upon our fellow citizens, strongly suggests that there is a fair amount of sadism mixed in with all that masochism. Hardly a pretty picture of our national character, and even less so of those NZ First voters bounced so easily into abandoning their nobler impulses by the prospect of a second election". https://democracyproject.nz/2023/10/09/chris-trotter-reckless-speculation/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=chris-trotter-reckless-speculation

    • Obtrectator 8.5
      19 October 2023 at 10:29 am

      No-one seems to have pointed out that these preliminary results actually give National fewer seats than they got in 2017!

  9. observer 9
    18 October 2023 at 3:21 pm

    This is awesome!

    Winston Peters walks through the airport for two minutes. Surrounded by media. Says "kia ora" to a member of the public … and nothing else. Not one single word.

    Saying nothing? Nah. Saying "I'm back, and I'm in charge now". Without words.

    Watch: Winston Peters refuses to answer 27 questions in media scrum (1news.co.nz)

  10. Ffloyd 10
    18 October 2023 at 4:06 pm

    I am curious to know why Andrew Bayley ,National mp for Port Waikato was not investigated for his share in a family trust after Michael Wood was stripped of his portfolios for the same thing. Were the rules changed or something? It seems he is certain to get the seat of the deceased Act pm.

    • James Simpson 10.1
      18 October 2023 at 4:57 pm

      Short answer. One was a Minister, One was not a Minister.

      Both were entitled to run in their electorates. Both did.

      • Louis 10.1.1
        18 October 2023 at 6:17 pm

        But both were in parliament. Andrew Bayley should have had the same level of scrutiny as Michael Wood.

        • Belladonna 10.1.1.1
          18 October 2023 at 9:41 pm

          Nope. Ministers are covered by the Cabinet Manual – which is a lot more restrictive on what must be declared, and what should be divested. Ministers have to declare shareholdings to the Cabinet Office – which determines the level of conflict – and makes recommendations for managing this.

          For the simple reason that Ministers have a lot of power in government – and must be seen to be impartial. Back-bench and/or opposition MPs – not so much.

          If Andrew Bayley becomes a Minister, then he will be required to meet the same level of disclosure and scrutiny as Wood.

          Of course, Wood stuffed up, mostly, by repeatedly assuring everyone concerned that he had sold the shares, while making no attempt to do so.

        • James Simpson 10.1.1.2
          19 October 2023 at 11:51 am

          MW was stripped of ministerial warrants.

          AB wasn't a minister so that wasn't an option.

          • Louis 10.1.1.2.1
            19 October 2023 at 2:28 pm

            Still a member of parliament, and there was a mad flurry of mps correcting the record. See 10.1.1.1.1

    • Incognito 10.2
      18 October 2023 at 5:13 pm

      […] the seat of the deceased Act pm.

      The by-election must be held because the ACT candidate died. He was not an MP (nor PM) and it was not his seat as such.

      This seat was held by Andrew Bayly (NAT) who will likely win it again in the by-election.

  11. Patricia Bremner 11
    18 October 2023 at 5:45 pm

    And the shares.????? Bloody typical. Rules for us and rules for them. Will Luxon get another report to “shelve?”

  12. Ffloyd 12
    18 October 2023 at 6:02 pm

    Thank you for your clarifications but I still don’t see why he didn’t have to declare his shares.

    • Belladonna 12.1
      18 October 2023 at 9:59 pm

      This seems to be the relevant bit in the report

      "MPs are required to disclose their shareholdings to Parliament as part of the annual register of pecuniary interests, however MPs decided at the end of the last parliamentary term that shares held in a trust did not necessarily need to be declared, taking a different view to a top official."

      https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/politics/election-2023-national-mp-did-not-declare-shareholding-to-parliament-in-wake-of-michael-wood-scandal/FR5FFQ73GJES3LS63CZRLCXE7U/

      I gather that decision – that shares in a trust do not need to be declared – has come under fresh scrutiny following the Wood privileges committee hearing – and MPs (especially those with Ministerial ambitions) are pre-emptively declaring…. just in case.

      But Parliament’s Privileges Committee, investigating Wood, came to a different opinion, saying that the current rules did not exactly require this. Nonetheless, in the aftermath of this resignation, a host of MPs began declaring their interests in more detail.

      Note: this Trust issue is irrelevant to the Wood situation – he personally owned the Airport shares while he was Transport Minister (although he was also the beneficiary of a Trust which owned other shares – which is why the situation was being discussed by the PC).

  13. Ffloyd 13
    18 October 2023 at 6:06 pm

    It’s ok. I think I’ve got it. But still sounds shonky.

    • observer 13.1
      18 October 2023 at 6:44 pm

      Everything changes from here on in. Saying "what about?" doesn't have much effect when it's about a candidate or backbencher for an opposition party.

      But as of now, it will be about Ministers and government supporters (with baubles). The chances of Nat/ACT/NZF being clean are zero.

      Watching Luxon run away from the inevitable questions about inevitable hypocrisy will be a feature of Politics 2024. Enjoy it.

  14. Ffloyd 14
    18 October 2023 at 7:33 pm

    Louis. That’s what I had thought.