Open mike 24/08/2016

Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, August 24th, 2016 - 38 comments
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38 comments on “Open mike 24/08/2016 ”

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  1. Sanctuary 1
    24 August 2016 at 8:04 am

    thecanary.co seems to be filling a definite need in the UK

    http://www.thecanary.co/2016/08/23/the-canary-sets-online-record-in-july-to-overtake-spectator-and-economist-press-release/

    Perhaps the biggest victim will eventually be the Guardian, whose reputation has plummeted in the wake of Corbyn and the Brexit.

    • Garibaldi 1.1
      24 August 2016 at 8:25 am

      That is good news .It has been sad to witness the fall of the Guardian – it used to be great.
      Hey, maybe The Daily Blog will replace the Herald in Godzone??? Just joking , but I am impressed with the nightly Waatea News at 7pm.

      • Sanctuary 1.1.1
        24 August 2016 at 8:35 am

        If you ever wanted a real life example of Gramsci’s

        “…The old is dying and the new cannot be born. In this interregnum there arises a great diversity of morbid symptoms….”

        It would be the convulsions of the UK PLP and it’s establishment media supporters in the Guardian.

  2. Puckish Rogue 2
    24 August 2016 at 8:36 am

    I don’t normally comment on Corbyn or English politics because, generally, I couldn’t care less what they do but if you’re trying to make a point you really need to make sure you do it right:

    http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/aug/23/jeremy-corbyn-virgin-trains-disputes-claim-over-lack-of-seats

    • Sanctuary 2.1
      24 August 2016 at 8:56 am

      WTF are you talking about? That story is a perfect illustration of my point, you pillock.

      Everyone in the UK knows the privatisation of the rail system has been a catastrophe for consumers. The image of Corbyn sitting on the floor of a crowded train was a telling blow in his favour, since it humanised him and was something that everyone could relate to and ran counter to one of the key memes of the relentless, dehumansising smear campaign against Corbyn – namely, that he is an out of touch crank only worthy of contemptuous loathing.

      It is obvious that the estalishment media like the Guardian would strenuously try and discredit Corbyn on this, and lo! So this story duly appears, being little more than a rewritten press release from Virgin Trains, including using loaded language (“…Backed up by Virgin Group founder Sir Richard Branson…” Sir Richard, knighted by his mate Tony Blair!) to try and discredit Corbyn. The story is an obvious, flimsy, counter gambit from a partisan paper which seems to be prepared to destroy itself if it helps destroy Corbyn.

      Right wing simpletons like you clearly lack the higher cognitive powers to critically evaluate the media in it’s political context. That was no problem back in the day when your sole audience was the long suffering letters editor of the Waitaki Inquirer, or your cat, or whoever the hell it was you bombarded with your miserable nonsense. The tragedy of the internet is nowadays we all get to witness your demonstrating the all too real limits to your intellectual comprehension.

      • Puckish Rogue 2.1.1
        24 August 2016 at 9:01 am

        He was talking about a lack of seats and sat on the floor to make a point but CCTV footage showed him walking past empty seats, showed him sitting down on a seat and then showed him sitting on the floor.

        Did you not even bother to read the article?

        • Sanctuary 2.1.1.1
          24 August 2016 at 9:06 am

          *sigh*

          Would like a ginger nut with your cup of tea dear?

          • Puckish Rogue 2.1.1.1.1
            24 August 2016 at 9:23 am

            So you don’t think this stunt will backfire on him then, I have no issues with stunts themselves but the danger is when they’re poorly executed they turn around and bite you on the bum

            what it will come down to is who the people believe/like more, Sir Richard Branson or Jeremy Corban

            • Sanctuary 2.1.1.1.1.1
              24 August 2016 at 9:24 am

              I will tell you what I don’t think. I don’t think you can read properly.

              • Puckish Rogue …
                24 August 2016 at 9:33 am

                I think your ideological blinkers are on so strong that you find other opinions inconceivable

                • BM …
                  24 August 2016 at 9:36 am

                  Socialism/Statism is a religion for so many, which makes Pope Coyrbn beyond reproach.

                  • The lost sheep …
                    24 August 2016 at 11:16 am

                    But not beyond the reproach of the voting Public according to YouGov…

                    ‘On who would make the best Prime Minister Theresa May leads Jeremy Corbyn by 58% to 12% with YouGov, by 58% to 19% with ComRes.
                    Looking at MORI’s long term approval trackers Jeremy Corbyn’s net approval rating is minus 41 – already pushing at Ed Miliband’s lowest of minus 44 (and those depths took Miliband years).
                    Corbyn’s favourability rating in ComRes last week was minus 28, worse than everyone else they asked about but Trump’

                    Worth noting that his ‘best PM’ rating of 12% is still higher than Andrew Littles ‘Preferred PM’ figure!

            • North 2.1.1.1.1.2
              24 August 2016 at 10:03 pm

              But of course his trust levels, well they’re not like you say, are they Bowel ? You’re just characteristically boweling and troweling. For your health and the ‘perfume’ I suppose.

      • mikesh 2.1.2
        24 August 2016 at 6:02 pm

        It now transpires that the empty seats were not empty at all, but had bags and jackets, etc placed on them by seated passengers in order to reserve them for their friends and/or family. Whatever one thinks of his politics, one would have to be be pretty gullible to believe Corbyn would pull the sort of stunt Branson was claiming, if empty seats had been available.

      • North 2.1.3
        24 August 2016 at 9:46 pm

        Love your use of the word “pillock” there Sanctuary. So fitting in response to someone who admits they’re one of those ‘Don’t-give-a-fuckers’ but still expects to be taken seriously. Good old straight up bellicose English diction. Like it ! The Hoorah Henrys don’t like the word because by and large the inbred fuckers are exactly that – ‘tea’ = ‘supper’ – pillocks. My memories of UK rail few decades ago under the reign of Dog Thatcher are exactly that. No seats.

    • BM 2.2
      24 August 2016 at 9:34 am

      Christ,talk about amateur hour, obviously the old boy hadn’t heard of cctv cameras.

      His trust levels with the UK voter must be sub-zero.

      • Puckish Rogue 2.2.1
        24 August 2016 at 9:51 am

        I’ve got no issues with stunts but if they backfire on you they tend to backfire pretty badly

        Don Brash springs to mind

        • North 2.2.1.1
          24 August 2016 at 10:07 pm

          Don Brash springs ? How interesting ! Wouldn’t have thought it possible. Did you hear that from some gold-digging ‘captainess of commerce’

    • indiana 2.3
      24 August 2016 at 9:59 am

      These sorts of stunts remind of how Labour try show examples of people living in tents, but instead they are temporary storage situations.

    • Bearded Git 2.4
      24 August 2016 at 10:25 am

      Listening to Radio 4 this morning the reporter for the BBC said that the footage was not clear that there were unreserved seats available. The reporter said the truth was swinging back towards Corbyn’s account. Corbyn had produced further photos showing other people sat in the corridor. It was only when a family was upgraded to first class did seats become available after 45 mins of the journey.

      Oddly (sarc) the BBC continued to run the main headline as though Corbyn had been lying and that (lovely Richard Branson’s) Virgin trains were right that there were spare seats. Of course Virgin have a lucrative part taxpayer funded contract to run the London-Newcastle route so no bias there then.

      • Rodel 2.4.1
        24 August 2016 at 7:54 pm

        Corbyn pays his taxes in the UK.
        Branson pays (sarc) his in Virgin Islands.
        Guess who pays the most?

    • Macro 2.5
      24 August 2016 at 2:13 pm

      You believe what you want dickhead – but I shall believe eyewitness accounts from people who were actually there – not footage of cameras that do not show bags and coats placed on seats for passengers who are in the dining car etc.

      Yannis Mendez, who filmed the original video – he has been following Corbyn and volunteers for his leadership campaign against Owen Smith – added that some of the seemingly empty seats shown in the first Virgin Trains image had bags and coats on them, so were not free.

      The Corbyn team’s account was supported by a woman who said she sat on the floor next to the Labour leader, having sent a social media photo of herself and her daughter with him.

      Ellen – who asked to not be named in full– told the Guardian that Corbyn had seemingly gone through the entire standard-class section of the train but had not been able to find a seat. The 26-year-old, who was with her one-year-old daughter and son, aged six, said she had similarly been unable to find seats.

      “He’s not lying,” she said. “When I saw him he was in coach A, right at the front. He hadn’t managed to find a seat in the whole of the train. I was sat on the floor, there was no space for me to get a seat. There were people in every space between every carriage. It was totally overcrowded. They were full of bags and full of people.”

      Another woman, Keren Harrison, tweeted a photo of herself with Corbyn on the train, saying there was only a seat for him about 45 minutes into the three-hour trip “when staff started shuffling people around”. This process appeared to involve Virgin staff directing other passengers sitting in corridors to reserved seats which had not been occupied.

    • Whateva next? 2.6
      24 August 2016 at 7:04 pm

      Probably best you stick to your usual if you don’t understand what’s going on.

  3. adam 3
    24 August 2016 at 9:39 am

    Fair interview with Rob Urie on the show ‘On Contact’, not the best setting for Rob, he does better when he not in such a formal setting. I’d encourage anyone to read Zen Economics.

  4. RTM 4
    24 August 2016 at 11:20 am

    It’s slavery remembrance day, but very few New Zealanders are aware of their country’s deep involvement with the Pacific slave trade in the 19th century. In 1863 New Zealanders and Tasmanians raided two Tongan islands and sold their people to Peruvian slavers, and later in the nineteenth century slaves were brought from the New Hebrides to New Zealand to work in flax mills and as domestic servants. It is interesting to read what the NZ Herald ha to say about a group of ni-Vanuatu slaves:
    http://readingthemaps.blogspot.co.nz/2015/06/savage-garbage-gatherers-new-zealand.html

    • North 4.1
      24 August 2016 at 10:24 pm

      And no one seems to know and if they do they’re like Bowel and Puckish Rogue and Tralwyn……they don’t give a fuck…….New Zealand had the most inglorious adventures in Samoa commencing in the 20s of last century, when we were after ’empire’. And we think we’ve done Polynesians the biggest favours – ummmmm, ask Steve Hansen.

      In my personal experience here and in both nations they’re a bloody sight more real, warm, generous people than your average snobby, racist, weakling, cargo cult, Keydashian suckers.

  5. Halfcrown 5
    24 August 2016 at 11:49 am

    Interesting article (pardon the pun) in Interest.Co

    All I can add, after 8 years of the fucking spivs government, the country like Havelock North is well and truly in the shit.

    Bill English minister of finance! That is one of the biggest fucking jokes going. Would not trust that prat with the smoko money.

    http://www.interest.co.nz/news/83229/sp-increases-risk-weightings-nz-banks-due-increased-risk-sharp-correction-property-prices

  7. save nz 7
    24 August 2016 at 12:56 pm

    ‘Come with an open mind’: what life is really like in New Zealand
    “The only advice I have is come with loads of money, because New Zealand is really expensive.”
    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/aug/23/come-with-an-open-mind-what-life-is-really-like-in-new-zealand?CMP=fb_gu

  8. ianmac 8
    24 August 2016 at 2:12 pm

    What’s up at Parliament? Scheduled start for 2pm today. Nothing on Radio or online?????

  9. esoteric pineapples 9
    24 August 2016 at 4:00 pm

    Prisoners across the United States will be going on strike on September 9th on the 41st anniversary of the Attica riots, protesting slave labour – https://insurrectionnewsworldwide.com/2016/08/10/usa-poster-for-september-9-nationwide-prisoner-strike-against-prison-slavery/

  10. Nic the NZer 10
    24 August 2016 at 9:36 pm

    http://bilbo.economicoutlook.net/blog/?p=34210

    Bill Mitchell on the UK economy post Brexit. In brief, and despite dire predictions, nothing bad appears to have happened to the UK economy at all!

  11. Chooky 11
    24 August 2016 at 10:25 pm

    Who exactly is friends with Russia?

    ‘Julian Assange special: Do Wikileaks have the email that will put Hillary Clinton in prison? (E376)’

    https://www.rt.com/shows/going-underground/354847-wikileaks-dnc-leaks-russia/

    “Afshin Rattansi goes underground with Julian Assange. We talk to the founder of Wikileaks about how the recent DNC leaks have no connection to Russia. Plus what are Hillary Clinton’s connections to Islamic State, Saudi Arabia and Russia?”