Posts Tagged ‘john armstrong’

Don’t blame MMP for Nat stupidity

Written By: - Date published: 9:32 am, December 18th, 2012 - 18 comments

Recent pieces by Bernard Hickey and John Armstrong both highlighted the problem of our aging population and the unsustainability of super – in Hickey’s memorable words we are “consuming our future”.  Armstrong tries to balme MMP, but that won’t wash, it’s just the usual short-sighted Nat stupidity…

Right wing bigot pines for days of right wing bigotry

Written By: - Date published: 10:42 am, September 22nd, 2012 - 180 comments

John Roughan has a whinge about Campbell Live’s coverage of the Christchurch school closures in today’s Herald.

Poor John pines for the days when Paul Holmes was broadcasting rightwing bullsh*t nationwide every evening.

Go read Gordon Campbell

Written By: - Date published: 1:40 pm, September 18th, 2012 - 35 comments

Yesterday the ‘sphere was all a-twitter with reaction to John Armstrong’s rant at “parasitical bloggers”. On this and many other topics, do yourself a favour, go read Gordon Campbell.

My 2 cents

Written By: - Date published: 9:37 am, September 17th, 2012 - 49 comments

It must be pretty sweet when your full-time job is to write 4 500-word columns of opinion a week. It’s even sweeter when you can use those 500 words to have a whinge at your critics rather than write about things that your audience, you know, gives a crap about. The weird thing about Armstrong’s article is it first attempts to refute the critics and then provides excuses. But, in truth, it’s a personal tirade. And the place for that isn’t a national newspaper column: it’s a blog.

The Nats’ agenda

Written By: - Date published: 11:23 am, June 9th, 2012 - 30 comments

You don’t usually see it stated as succinctly as this.

More willful ignorance on charter schools

Written By: - Date published: 10:35 am, April 29th, 2012 - 27 comments

Armstrong tries to downplay the risks of charter schools. To do so of course he has to (as the PM so often does) denigrate the science that he wants to ignore.

Game on

Written By: - Date published: 10:39 am, October 2nd, 2011 - 56 comments

The weeks of the RWC were supposed to be a politics-free zone. Bread and circuses.  It hasn’t turned out that way, as both Armstrong and O’Sullivan point out in weekend opinion pieces.  The credit downgrades have dropped a bomb in the middle of the political landscape. But I think that both are wrong in expecting any action from the Nats.

Partisan politics

Written By: - Date published: 7:12 am, September 26th, 2011 - 45 comments

John Key is ridiculously negative on seemingly any proposal raised by a perceived political opponent.  Which is a pity, because there are issues facing the country that need a bipartisan consensus.

Ohnstrong on Labour’s Chch policy

Written By: - Date published: 9:43 am, September 21st, 2011 - 29 comments

A guest post from Jarm Ohnstrong: I want to start this article with an apology. A couple of weeks ago, I attacked Labour for its criticism of National’s performance on the Christchurch rebuild while not having released its own recovery policy. That was unfair and petty. Now, Labour has released its policy. It’s deserving of the highest praise.

More Armstrong bullshit

Written By: - Date published: 5:38 pm, September 10th, 2011 - 67 comments

John Armstrong wants Labour to come out radically different after the Cup. Having refused to cover Labour’s skills package or its mining policy, he’s suddenly interested in policy. He wants Labour to suddenly adopt league tables and forget the 39% tax rate. Armstrong genuinely doesn’t seem to get it. Parties of the Left don’t pick and swap policies on a whim.

Key’s Midas touch

Written By: - Date published: 5:08 pm, June 11th, 2011 - 17 comments

John Armstrong reckons Key has the “Midas touch”.    Ahh, no.  Or at least, not in the sense that John meant…

Two great columns

Written By: - Date published: 1:31 pm, June 4th, 2011 - 15 comments

John Armstrong says NZers are like frogs in ever hotter water, not realising the incrementally more radical agenda of National.
Tracy Watkins looks at the rise of lobbyists and their lack of accountability.

Flattering to deceive

Written By: - Date published: 10:21 am, May 28th, 2011 - 23 comments

Ever noticed the big political journos will do a scathing attack on one major party then, the next day, one on the other major party? It’s about maintaining access. If you only run attacks on one party, you’ll stop getting stories from them (nearly all political stories come from the opposing party). After this, it was Labour’s turn in Armstrong’s sights today, or was it?

Armstrong on the budget

Written By: - Date published: 8:32 am, May 22nd, 2011 - 13 comments

John Armstrong is highly critical of the sub-zero budget: “The Budget has displayed a degree of cynicism one would expect from a Government in its third term, not its first”…

Armstrong on Nats’ elitist agenda

Written By: - Date published: 10:47 am, April 16th, 2011 - 7 comments

National has pillaged the poor to benefit the rich. That can be seen in the tax cuts, the GST hike, the subsidies for climate polluters, even the cuts to public transport to fund holiday highways. But sometimes it’s the smaller stories that best expose the underlying theme of a government, as John Armstrong shows in his piece today.

Armstrong on “Austerity”

Written By: - Date published: 5:24 pm, April 7th, 2011 - 12 comments

John Armstrong is losing patience with the Nats: “National is certainly consistent when it comes to cutting spending. It consistently fails to practise what it preaches…”

Begging the question

Written By: - Date published: 8:45 am, March 25th, 2011 - 43 comments

Yesterday, John Armstrong wrote “Goff’s management of the crisis has already begged a major question.” Apart from making me wonder if the question was ‘is it OK for the Minister of Police to leak stories about ongoing police investigations for political gain’, Armstrong’s misuse of ‘begging the question’ reminded me of this song.

Armstrong on soap opera politics

Written By: - Date published: 9:27 am, December 18th, 2010 - 9 comments

Armstrong makes a powerful attack on the media’s “increasing appetite for personality-based politics at the expense of more serious discussion about policy”. If only Armstrong were one of half a dozen political editors who shape the media discourse. To be fair, Armstrong hardly writes about soap opera stuff. Some of his junior colleagues should follow suit.

Winning the game

Written By: - Date published: 1:20 pm, December 12th, 2010 - 6 comments

John Key deserves the award for Politician of the Year. But it’s not quite the honour Armstrong thinks it is.  The Left wants a government to deliver results for the people’s health, wealth, family, safety, education, employment prospects etc. That’s why the Left is so critical of Key. He plays the ‘politician’ game well but does nothing meaningful.

Politician of the year?

Written By: - Date published: 12:59 pm, December 11th, 2010 - 55 comments

After parading his prejudices about for a bit, John Armstrong lauds Key as “politician of the year”.  Key is popular yes, but is he actually effective?   Is he a good leader? It won’t surprise you to learn that my answer is a resounding no.  Care to convince me that I’m wrong?  Go ahead — make your case…

Armstrong on the constitutional review

Written By: - Date published: 7:13 am, December 10th, 2010 - 41 comments

John Armstrong pulls no punches on the constitutional review, the second time in recent history that he has called the government a disgrace.  Add it to the ever growing list of outrageous behaviour from the Nats.  Is this the worst government for democracy in the history of NZ?

Armstrong on Do Nothing Key’s big adventure

Written By: - Date published: 12:37 pm, November 20th, 2010 - 28 comments

John Armstrong’s straight-faced piss-take of John Key’s holiday very important diplomatic mission to Japan last week is very very funny. Without a hint of irony, Armstrong reveals how Key achieved nothing, talked big only to be put in his place by the big boys, and filled in his diary that was devoid of important meetings with pissant PR.

The dust settles on the Hobbit fiasco

Written By: - Date published: 9:54 am, October 31st, 2010 - 37 comments

Eventually the dust was going to settle on the Hobbit fiasco and the truth was going to come out.

Fortunately the media has done a bloody good job of making sure that happened.

So what have they been saying?

Granny Herald opening eyes?

Written By: - Date published: 11:43 am, October 25th, 2010 - 10 comments

There was an excellent piece in the Saturday Herald by John Armstrong.  A large 2-page spread, fairly prominent in the paper, and not critical of Labour.  Not fulsome praise; just great, unbiased reporting.

Now admittedly I shouldn’t get excited by such things, but the steadily slipping standards of New Zealand’s papers, combined with a media love-in with National at the last election, leaves good quality newspaper  journalism a sight to behold.

Tell Liz you can’t make it, John

Written By: - Date published: 10:00 am, September 7th, 2010 - 28 comments

I didn’t want to be the first to say it. Since John Armstrong now has, I will ask the question too: why the hell is the John Key planning to go for a holiday weekend with the Queen and a chat with his carbon-copy David Cameron when our second-largest city is a disaster zone? It seems he doesn’t appreciate the responsibilities of his job and just wants to be Minister for Overseas Holidays.

Our $20 million bill for Nats’ expediency

Written By: - Date published: 8:48 pm, September 1st, 2010 - 28 comments

Many argue English should never have extended the deposit guarantee to South Canterbury Finance in April, or question whether the terms of the guarantee called for the pay-out. Then there’s the stink around the payment of SCF bonds. One thing’s for sure, the Nats didn’t need to spend $20 million on foreign depositors – they did it to try to kill the issue faster. Plenty of meat for Labour. Will they bite?

Commentators waking up

Written By: - Date published: 2:23 pm, August 14th, 2010 - 38 comments

Some within Labour believe that the tide of popularity is beginning to go out on the National government. Commentators seem to be waking up too. John Armstrong takes the Nats to task for their scare-mongering on benefits. And Fran O’Sullivan, cuts to the chase – it’s the economy stupid.

Key’s lies are nothing new

Written By: - Date published: 11:39 am, July 29th, 2010 - 27 comments

The Nats lied and promised their way in to an election win in 2008. That was always going to make it difficult for them as the honeymoon glow wore off. Now Key is lying about the failure on one of their biggest empty promises of all.

Rush to judge turns embarrassing

Written By: - Date published: 12:30 pm, June 2nd, 2010 - 18 comments

The Budget is turning into something of an embarrassment for the media. Even before it had been released, the journos in their lock-up had written pieces proclaiming it a hugely popular success. The evidence says they got it wrong. The people think they’ll be worse off. Journos need to stop deciding public opinion before it has had a chance to form, let alone be sampled.

Tory pundits’ tough words on Nats

Written By: - Date published: 2:11 pm, May 22nd, 2010 - 16 comments

John Armstrong looks at the typical John Key-style punt that lies behind the budget.

Meanwhile Tracey Watkins has calmed down after the excitement of seeing the size of her tax cut and is questioning why Key is so afraid of anything but tightly managed media appearances.

Budget punditry round-up spectacular!

Written By: - Date published: 11:57 pm, May 20th, 2010 - 62 comments

A round up of commentary from around the media on the Budget. Well, the media that’s in written form anyway. I’ll be damned if I’m doing any transcribing. Favourite lines, Vernon Small: “Bill English has written a one-dimensional tax-shuffle Budget”, John Armstrong: “Those looking for the bright ideas and initiatives to galvanise economic growth are going to be hugely disappointed”