Political punditry in 2019

• mickysavage
• 5 years ago
• Categories: auckland supercity, Deep stuff, Donald Trump, greens, housing, jacinda ardern, Jeremy Corbyn, journalism, labour, local government, making shit up, national, phil goff, quality of life, Simon Bridges, the praiseworthy and the pitiful, uk politics, us politics, you couldn't make this shit up
• Tags: KiwiBuild

Stuff has, with a few other media outlets, come out with a new set of political predictions for the forthcoming year.

It has also given itself a mark of 90 out of 200 for last year’s predictions. This is apparently its worst mark yet. Maybe having a successful left wing Government has caught it out?

Some of the predictions were fairly predictable, like Bill English going and who were the likely replacements. Or that Kiwibuild was going to take some time to implement, of course it was going to take time to get moving.

Other predictions, for instance the budget one that the mini budget did most of the work and there would only be a couple of surprises, were as predictable as night happening after day. And a backbencher coming under fire for some sort of indiscretion? We are talking about Parliament here and 120 politicians. Of course someone was going to screw up.

And Stuff was totally wrong in its predictions relying on a knowledge of the inner workings of the Green Party. It is interesting how its reporters know what is happening within National with such detail but have very little idea what is happening within the Greens.

And a bombshell that will see a Minister resigning? I am struggling to think of a 12 month period where one has not resigned.

This flurry of sooth saying and predicting and reviewing has been summarised in these posts from Bryce Edwards where he reviews political sooth sayers’ predictions for the forthcoming year and the performance of various MPs. There are some jaw dropping conclusions.

Apparently the most disappointing politician was Clare Curran, not Simon Bridges.

I mean really? Believe me I am no Curran fan but Bridges’ performance as National leader has been really, really bad, so bad I hope he stays as leader for years to come.

Tracy Watkins’ view was the real clanger. She said this:

National’s team has been firing on all cylinders this year and Bridges deserves credit for that. He runs a slick back-office machine and – with the jarring exception of former whip and senior MP Jami-Lee Ross – his front bench has operated as a highly disciplined team.”

Does she occupy another dimension?

Shane Te Pou is quoted at length in Edwards’ review. I am not sure why. I know Shane through the Labour Party but have not seen him at many things recently. He appears to want to occupy the media position previously occupied by the likes of Josie Pagani where right wingers criticise Labour for not being right wing enough. It works on Newstalk ZB. It does not work with activists.

He and a few others are scathing of Phil Twyford and of Kiwibuild. I do not know why. It was always going to take years to improve the housing crisis and houses do not appear magically. It will take years of land acquisition, design, consenting and construction.

But if Twyford achieves it, and I am confident that he will be able to, then this will be a further strong reminder to people that if they want a Government that actually cares about ordinary people and is willing to use the powers of the state then they should vote Labour.

And for the media, if you want to have a go to person who will present critical views but from a Labour perspective then can I recommend Robert Reid or Neale Jones?

Anyway I thought that I would add a few predictions of my own. Here they are:

1. Jacinda Ardern will continue to be loved and will develop into one of Labour’s truly great leaders like Clark and Savage.
2. Cabinet ministers will continue to make the occasional mistake which National will jump on from a great height. Most of the population will go Meh.
3. The Kiwibuild roll out will slowly increase and there will be thousands of young people grateful that they are able to afford their own home in Auckland.
4. Phil Goff will be returned as Auckland’s mayor with the rump of right wing voters holding their nose and voting for John Tamihere.
5. National’s caucus will continue to leak.
6. Simon Bridges will continue to be National’s leader, with Caucus being unable to agree on a replacement and with the contenders realising that the 2020 election is Labour’s for the taking.
7. National will continue to pull off stunts like its recent Three Billboards campaign which ignore the fact that the problems were of its own making and the projects would not have been funded if National had been returned to power.
8. National will appeal the Court of Appeal decision regarding Eminem’s copyright breach and lose. They will then approach the Government for special legislation so that they can pay the bill and not commit a corrupt electoral practice.
9. The Whaleoil site will become the defacto home for a nascent conservative party led by David Moffett which will campaign against climate change and immigration but fail to reach 5% of any poll. National will continue to have no friends.
10. Trump will continue from disaster to disaster.
11. Theresa May will not go through with a hard Brexit and will lose a vote of confidence on her soft Brexit proposal. Jeremy Corbyn will then be elected Prime Minister.