Steady on

Written By: - Date published: 9:50 am, January 5th, 2015 - 27 comments
Categories: john key - Tags: , , ,

It’s still the silly season, and my brain is still on holiday. However, I did think this was worth a quick laugh! In a piece on the Archivist investigating Key’s deletion of his textses, the usually excellent Andrea Vance gets a bit silly herself:

But many of his other SMSs – those sent as prime minister – will one day be as important to the historical record as the letters of Winston Churchill.

Ahh – no. Winston Churchill was one of the most significant leaders of the last century. John Key’s only real achievement as PM is being popular. History will remember him, if at all, as one of the long list of leaders who squandered the opportunity to act on climate change.

27 comments on “Steady on ”

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  1. Sanctuary 1
    5 January 2015 at 10:25 am

    Although she is right – electronic communication is still communication. I don’t have a paper diary. My email is the equivalent of my diary, I’ve archived every (yes, I mean every) email work or personal I’ve ever sent since about 1998. They come in nowadays at a hefty 20+ GB. Most of it is utter dross to most people – but to me, for example, now they have both died having every email my parents I sent to each other is a precious source of memories. Who knows, if I go on to be famous in some way a biographer might find that useful as well.

    The same thing with text messages. 99% of them are mundane dross. But 1% are not. One day, a historian would love to track the beginning of John Key’s texts with Slater, or the frequency he texted Farrar during election campaigns, etc etc. And there is also what we don’t currently know – what if the PM is having an affair with woman who turns out to be a CIA agent? The (currently) deleted texts would be of historical importance in relation to decisions made as PM!

    Privacy need not be an issue – simply cover the PM’s electronic communications under a thirty year rule, or until they die. The key is to record for history this new form of documentation.

    • Anne 1.1
      5 January 2015 at 11:17 am

      … what if the PM is having an affair with (a) woman who turns out to be a CIA agent?

      Oh, is that why he’s always popping off to LA. Couldn’t even wait a few hours so he could attend the memorial service of 3 soldiers killed in combat. 😛

      • Sacha 1.1.1
        5 January 2015 at 11:52 am

        That trip was his negotiation with Hollywood bigwigs, et al.

      • Manuka AOR 1.1.2
        5 January 2015 at 12:20 pm

        That failure to attend was one sharp indication of how the present NZ PM feels about Aotearoa, the people, the nation, the Servicemen and women – those who are dying in service to their country. Where was the loyalty? Where was the respect? Where was the example for all of us that a true leader would show?

        Compounding the pain of such overt callous disregard, the soldier who dared express his deep sense of betrayal then lost his own life, iirc.

        • Anne 1.1.2.1
          5 January 2015 at 5:37 pm

          And yet…. a recent article I read online calculated the number of times John Key had used various words in his speeches/interviews. Top of the list was “New Zealand”. On the basis of that, the author of the article concluded :

          “No-one could accuse Key of being unpatriotic”.

          He’s the PM of NZ for god’s sake. That’s why he mentioned it 3000 plus times. Either the writer was a RWNJ or he is as thick as two short planks.

          http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/64631412/the-language-of-john-key-akshually

          • Manuka AOR 1.1.2.1.1
            6 January 2015 at 2:36 am

            They are the words of a salesman – selling a piece of prime real estate, literally. Like an auctioneer who also repeats words rapidly. Selling not only “the family silver” but the family home and the land beneath it. Vast tracts of land. Our land. Our homes. Even rights to the ocean around us. And, via TPPA and other hidden ‘partnership’ agreements, selling out all of us – our rights to make our own laws and regulations, our own sovereignty.

            If we are unable to find our voice and speak out about this while we still can, do we even deserve our own land? If we are content to have it flogged off while we go about our daily business, without ever saying “NO!” .. then what right do we have to even claim what was once ours?

      • alwyn 1.1.3
        5 January 2015 at 1:58 pm

        That is quite amazing.
        Next thing you know he will be meeting a sheep rather than a 15,000 person hikoi because he thinks the sheep is better company.

  2. Brendon Harre 2
    5 January 2015 at 2:08 pm

    I make a humorous, tongue in cheek comparison of Gerry Brownlee to Winston Chruchill here.

    http://www.interest.co.nz/opinion/70493/fridays-top-10-brendon-harr%C3%A9-national-vs-labour-housing-affordability-uk-councils-spy-

    Go to the following comment that starts like this.

    by Brendon | 20 Jun 14, 12:55pm

    11. 100 points to me for adding the most unexpected character into the New Zealand housing debate -Winston Churchill ; ).

    • Sacha 2.1
      5 January 2015 at 8:26 pm

      The main problem is our financial settings (top ten most traded currencies), not land supply or ‘containment’ – which makes infrastructure provision and social/economic interconnectedness more efficient.

      I know it’s not your intention but please don’t drink the right-wing kool-aid on that one. Sprawl is not our future. Only lazy developers and doltish governments need see single-level tarmac-ridden futures.

      • Brendon Harre 2.1.1
        6 January 2015 at 4:19 am

        “There’s some debate about this, but I think most readers of Thomas Piketty’s book (Capital in the Twenty-First Century) get the impression that the accumulation of wealth — savings —is responsible for the rise in inequality and that there is, therefore, in a way,a link between the growth of the economy — the accumulation of capital— on the one hand and inequality and wealth. My paper begins with the observation that in fact, you cannot explain what has happened to the wealth/income ratio by that analysis. A closer look at what has gone on suggests that a large fraction of the increase in wealth is an increase in the value of land, not in the amount of capital goods.” Joseph Stiglitz http://www.salon.com/2015/01/02/joseph_stiglitz_thomas_piketty_gets_income_inequality_wrong_partner/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=socialflow

      • Brendon Harre 2.1.2
        6 January 2015 at 4:31 am

        Sacha another left wing economist would dispute your statement that land supply or ‘containment’ is not a problem. Read about how Britain escaped the Great Depression http://www.voxeu.org/article/escaping-liquidity-traps-lessons-uk-s-1930s-escape

        There is a whole section on house building. Like NZ at the same time these were transit orientated housing developments. In London’s case based on the Underground. In NZ it was schemes like State housing around the Wellington passenger rail lines.

        • Sacha 2.1.2.1
          6 January 2015 at 12:28 pm

          I said it was not the *main* problem, as this govt is pretending. Untill they address demand-side factors that are driving cheap money into housing rather than productive investment, it won’t be fixed.

  3. aerobubble 3
    5 January 2015 at 3:59 pm

    Churchill was made by the WWII. Average tory prick otherwise.

    Key girlly giggle by Metiria on backbenches tv show…
    …got me thinking… ..why can Key be such a glam queen
    on the gay cat walk?

    Maybe its due to how powerful women are. Women have
    to use other means to control, other than violence or its
    threat. Take Maggot Thatcher, a parasitical revolution pandering
    to greed and dumbing down public discourse via media spin.
    Key taps into this same said girlly power, Murdoch driven politics
    by name calling girliness. We under estimate womens power,
    we even castigate men, on their behalf, who plead how
    sorry they are to be men. Thats how powerful women are.

    Spin was after all how women have done politics for generations
    before girlly politicians like Key, an girlly media mogals like Murdoch,
    even girlly billionaires, who claim some manly self made persona,
    are totally ignorant of the collective power of women in creating
    the order and stability that made their billions possible.

    So, in conclusion, Key, Churchill, women did it to them, they were
    merely vassals of female power.

  4. Paul 4
    5 January 2015 at 4:24 pm

    Churchill used poison gas against Iraq.
    Key wants to join in war against Iraq where depleted uranium being used.

    Another similarity.

  5. Dorothy 5
    5 January 2015 at 7:41 pm

    I am with you ROB, the record is poor.
    I will add that over time dirty politics will register.

  6. Lloyd 6
    5 January 2015 at 10:11 pm

    Its worth remembering that Winston Churchill was the ideas man for both Gallipoli and the use of New Zealand troops in Greece ii WWII – and therefore could considered the most effective killer of New Zealand men, ever. And a really organiser of military SNAFUs.

  7. esoteric pineapples 7
    5 January 2015 at 11:17 pm

    Winston Churchill and the Battle of Britain were there at a crucial moment during WWII. Neither Russia or the US were at war with Germany at that time. For all his faults Churchill was there when it mattered most.

    Incidently Fury is a stunning film and MUST be seen on the big screen.

  8. Murray Simmonds 8
    6 January 2015 at 7:01 am

    ‘ John Key’s only real achievement as PM is being popular . . . ‘

    Well. be fair Anthony. His other notable achievement will be that he has managed to hold on to office for 9 years without doing anything whatsoever that counts towards the future well-being of the country. All this at a time when the world is becoming desperately overdue for a MASSIVE change in political direction.

    • aerobubble 8.1
      6 January 2015 at 5:34 pm

      No. Key wil go down in history in having raised the amount of taxation levied on lower and middle NZ, while dropping upper income tax, raising GST, running up govt debt, while cutting services, and introducing charter schools, throwing moe money at privae schools, opening up govt databases to the private sector, leaking data from every ministry about citizens…

      …its Key do nothing because nobody will hear a bad word, or dare print it….

      …mine deregulation, happen under Key…
      …polluted rivers, under Key…

    • Colonial Viper 8.2
      7 January 2015 at 9:11 am

      Key signed into place egregious attacks on NZ civil liberties with his GCSB/anti-terrorism legislation which are all aimed against ordinary NZ citizens.

  9. Barbara 9
    7 January 2015 at 9:05 am

    Key having it off with a CIA agent?? He has to be having it real difficult to keep up with one wife, as for having another fling on the side – he is too much in love with himself to put in the time. In the TV series meeting the Leaders on the John Campbell Show before the election last year Key hardly even registered his wife was on the show with him – John Campbell noticed it – did anyone else – I did – but then I am female and picked up the nuances big time. Key believes he is a legend in his own mind – poor sod.

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