Posts Tagged ‘john armstrong’

Two senior journos, one side of the story

Written By: - Date published: 9:42 am, May 15th, 2010 - 23 comments

Two highly paid and highly experienced New Zealand Herald gallery journalists put their heads together for a budget story and what does the lucky reader get?

The world according to Bill English.

Pravda would be proud but most journalism tutors would be reaching for their red pen.

Nats plan to subsidise greenhouse polluters

Written By: - Date published: 9:07 am, April 29th, 2010 - 21 comments

National is predictably planning to put the cost of polluters’ actions on to the rest of us by canning the major parts of the ETS. This stupid game of pass the buck is played out all over the world – polluters refuse to accept their responsibilities, governments refuse to act – as more greenhouse gases are pumped into the atmosphere, locking us in to economic and ecological devastation.

‘Oh, oh’: sound of a minister floundering

Written By: - Date published: 8:23 am, March 18th, 2010 - 30 comments

Which minister will be next to go? Rodney Hide or Anne Tolley? If competence was a condition of keeping their job, both would be long gone. But doing a good minister has never been a job requirement in John Key’s government. It comes down to which of them makes a spectacular mistake so serious that […]

A love that will not die

Written By: - Date published: 2:14 pm, March 17th, 2010 - 19 comments

I tried to write a satire of John Armstrong’s column today along the lines of the ‘Beloved Key‘ one I did the other day. But I’ve had to give it away. It’s beyond parody.

So, I guess I’ll do some serious analysis instead.

Whaling proposal not realism, it’s a sell-out

Written By: - Date published: 9:00 am, March 10th, 2010 - 65 comments

John Armstrong has chucked John Key’s promise to end whaling down the memory hole and, instead, comes out swinging against those who don’t want to give up the commercial whaling ban: “the plan [will] allow commercial whaling for a 10-year period, but with big cuts in the numbers killed each year. This plan would buy […]

Armstrong on Clueless Tolley

Written By: - Date published: 12:30 pm, February 18th, 2010 - 19 comments

John Armstrong: “Anne Tolley’s reluctance to explain [national standards] left the distinct impression she was less than 100 per cent sure.” It was a bit more than an impression, and it was a bit less than 100%. Tolley clearly had no clue what she was talking about.

Columnists slam Key’s lack of plan

Written By: - Date published: 4:14 pm, February 13th, 2010 - 110 comments

Tracy Watkins awards the first week of Parliamentary politics this year to Phil Goff, and points out that it’s as much due to his and Labour’s much improved performance as it is to Key and National’s shambolic, over-promise, under-deliver governance. (more…)

Hone back but Maori Party divisions laid bare

Written By: - Date published: 3:33 pm, December 3rd, 2009 - 8 comments

So Hone Harawira has been readmitted into the fold of the Maori Party. It’s hard to see how excluding him from Parliament until the end of the year is a punishment, given that he has repeatedly said he detests the place (and who can blame him?). It seems more like political convenience for the Maori […]

Armstrong takes on Double Dipton

Written By: - Date published: 2:19 pm, September 26th, 2009 - 5 comments

John Armstrong joins the list of commentators saying Bill English shouldn’t get a cent for his housing rort: The time has come for Bill “Double Dipton” English to end the charade. Now, being Armstrong, the reasons aren’t principled, it’s all about limiting the damage to National: The possibility of the watchdog of public spending investigating the Minister […]

Keep it up, Chippie and co

Written By: - Date published: 8:40 am, August 20th, 2009 - 27 comments

Good on Chris Hipkins. The other day, he wrote: “National won the last election quite comfortably. Kiwis are fair minded people and will be willing to give them a fair go at the job before they pass judgment. I expect that will be reflected in the opinion polls for most of the current parliamentary term. […]

John Key, centrist

Written By: - Date published: 3:49 pm, July 24th, 2009 - 23 comments

IrishBill commented last night that “John Key the centrist” is a narrative we’re not hearing much from the commentariat any more. I thought this was strange given that was the brand they were all so dutifully selling us in the leadup to the election campaign. John Armstrong couldn’t get enough of it. I wondered what […]

Berating the Herald

Written By: - Date published: 10:53 pm, May 19th, 2009 - 19 comments

from Beck Vass: “With an average jury trial taking at least 12 months, and judge-alone trials taking just six months [that’s actually from charging to end of the case, not the length of time in court], trial times would be halved, reducing the trauma for victims and backlogs in overloaded courts. Mr Power said his […]

Where would you get that idea?

Written By: - Date published: 9:55 am, March 22nd, 2009 - 19 comments

John Armstrong March 21 2009 – “So the National Government is variously inching, shifting, drifting, veering or lurching to the right, depending on where you stand on the political spectrum. Surprise, surprise… John Key may have portrayed himself as a moderate pragmatist in Opposition – indeed he is still doing exactly that as Prime Minister […]

It’s a crime

Written By: - Date published: 10:57 am, February 2nd, 2009 - 36 comments

I have a crime to report. Someone has kidnapped one of our most insightful journos and replaced them with an illiterate wowser. How else to explain writing an article called “Collins must collar rising tide of crime ” when any journalist with a modicum of professionalism knows, having read the stats, that crime is not […]

Thank God somebody’s awake at Granny Herald

Written By: - Date published: 11:12 am, January 29th, 2009 - 32 comments

Surprise, surprise, it’s Garth George. “The economic situation is without a doubt the most urgent of predicaments to be dealt with, but so far this year all John Key and Co have offered is a talkfest scheduled for next month. Now we all know that the one thing that one does these days when one […]

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