Polity: Bye bye, Colin

Written By: - Date published: 10:43 am, July 28th, 2014 - 18 comments
Categories: colin craig, conservative party, election 2014, john key, MMP, national, winston peters - Tags:

polity_square_for_lynnReposted from Polity.

National has all-but confirmed today that there no deal for Colin Craig in East Coast Bays, or for any other Conservative.

This was the right thing for them to do, for one simple reason. I posted back in December 2013 that this decision came down to simple maths. If Key thought the Conservatives could muster double the votes that a decision to back the Conservatives would cost National in the centre-ground, then he should do the deal. If not, he should not.

All the stuff about Winston running was a bit of a late sideshow, as the decision had likely already been made.1

This morning’s Stuff report says: “A deal was unlikely to be worth it for Key, if the Conservatives were not polling over 3.5 per cent.” Assuming this figure came from within National somewhere, this shows he is estimating that almost 2% of the country would switch from National to a change party if they did the deal.

Key has clearly come to the correct realisation that enough middle ground New Zealanders find Colin Craig and the Conservatives so toxic that supporting him would cost the right more than it would gain. Colin, Key has decided, was was just too crazy for New Zealanders to stomach. Good call.

All the talk this afternoon will be of principle – or as close as they can come to it while still nodding to United Future and ACT. That talk will be a charade. It came down to simple numbers.

  1. Also, very smart for Winston to sniff the air and jump on this band wagon, so he can claim some public credit and gain some profile.

18 comments on “Polity: Bye bye, Colin ”

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  1. infused 1
    28 July 2014 at 10:48 am

    I don’t think he ever had a chance…

    • Lanthanide 1.1
      28 July 2014 at 11:50 am

      Yip. Colin demanding National stand aside was always going to be very unlikely, given that National try to contest all non-maori electorate seats. Coupled further by it being a minister who had held the seat for a long time, it really just wasn’t going to fly.

      Pity Colin made his mind up already, since National could end up with no candidate for Kelston – not that that seat would really help the Conservatives either.

      • Tracey 1.1.1
        28 July 2014 at 4:05 pm

        and now colin is being all clip floppery…

      • Skinny 1.1.2
        29 July 2014 at 8:35 am

        John Key was spinning snake oil regarding not fair on Muza. This is the Winston Peters fear factor. Winnie would cream Craig and in the process make a mockery of Key-National and their cosy deals.

        The Nats don’t want to give Peters oxygen they are dog whistling to try keep him under 5%.

        Peters will exact revenge for the skullduggery that saw NZF sit out a term of parliment. To keep the party going and rise from the ashes is a feat that only Winnie could do.

        He will go with L/G if Labour can lift the party vote enough.

  2. fambo 2
    28 July 2014 at 11:08 am

    If politics was an All Black team, Winston would be a flanker. Maybe he could have been a captain too if he had known how to be more than just a spoiler of the other team’s ball.

    • Colonial Viper 2.1
      28 July 2014 at 4:22 pm

      It’s been said – he’s the best PM we’ve never had. Would’ve been a total nightmare for his Cabinet though…

  3. Keiv 3
    28 July 2014 at 1:05 pm

    Would now love to see a Bye Bye, Hone !.

    Support KD to win, sod the IMp’s.

  4. John 4
    28 July 2014 at 1:20 pm

    Winston needs to put his name on the east coast bays list because otherwise slippery john will tell east coast bays days before the election to vote for Colin

    • Colonial Viper 4.1
      28 July 2014 at 5:20 pm

      Ah, well read.

    • James Stephenson 4.2
      28 July 2014 at 5:47 pm

      Unless you want to be even more cynical and suggest there might already be a backroom deal in place to give Winston some big farewell (Deputy PM etc etc) with a handover to Shane Jones in time for the next election.

      • bad12 4.2.1
        28 July 2014 at 6:11 pm

        i believe from what was said at the NZFirst Conference Winston will as a first ambit in coalition talks after the September contest demand of both Labour and National the position of Prime Minister,

        That is of course if NZFirst do attract 5% of the vote which i suggest is far from a certainty…

  5. phillip ure 5
    28 July 2014 at 3:17 pm

    yr/any celebrations are premature..

    ..mccully can still be pulled..up until 26th august..

    ..can i suggest the partying be delayed until 27th august..

  6. JK 6
    28 July 2014 at 3:52 pm

    I’ve just had word from the Electoral Commission that they’ve refused to allow the Conservative Party to have VOTE as their logo. This is what they said :

    On 24 July 2014, the Board, having considered:

    · all the material provided by the Conservative Party of New Zealand (’the party’),

    · all the submissions made (all 148 of which opposed the application), and

    · the relevant provisions of the Electoral Act, including those prescribing the form of the ballot paper and the instructions for voters on the ballot paper,

    has resolved to refuse the application to amend or substitute the logo for the party on the ground that the appearance of the proposed logo on the ballot paper would be likely to cause confusion or mislead electors (section 71D of the Electoral Act 1993).

    .

    • One Anonymous Bloke 6.1
      28 July 2014 at 4:06 pm

      If they’d added “as intended” I doubt they’d be stretching the truth.

      • Draco T Bastard 6.1.1
        28 July 2014 at 6:39 pm

        What’s interesting is the last paragraph:

        The fact that the Commission has declined to register the proposed new logo does not prevent the party from using the proposed new logo in its own campaign material. There are no restrictions in the Electoral Act regarding what logo a party may use to represent themselves in their campaign. Parties are free to use other logos or symbols in addition to a registered logo as part of their branding (subject to other law, for example copyright law).

        Which, IMO, indicates that the law needs tightening up.

  7. Pete 7
    28 July 2014 at 4:04 pm

    I’m glad they agreed with me. Although I doubt I was the only submitter to make the point that the logo serves as an instruction rather than just a party identifier.

  8. bad12 8
    28 July 2014 at 6:00 pm

    That makes things interesting for the whole September contest doesn’t it, Slippery the Prime Minister has spun the wheel and bet that Winston Peters will take NZFirst into a coalition with National,

    He has placed side bets on both ACT and Flavell from the Maori Party retaining their electorates with less of an outlay on Dunne’s Ohariu, boundary changes aside for the moment, i see as the safest of the support parties seats which have kept National occupying the Treasury Benches for near on six years,

    IF NZFirst runs out of steam at under the 5% of the vote which is the hint of some of the media polls,(dubious at best), will National have enough of a vote along with the share of the ‘wasted’ vote to haul itself across the line ahead of the opposition parties…