Posts Tagged ‘spin’

A new house every 13 minutes

Written By: - Date published: 10:58 am, November 27th, 2012 - 82 comments

KiwiBuild has the Nats rattled. It’s difficult to oppose a program that creates both affordable housing and jobs, but they’re doing their best.  One of their lines is that NZ can’t build houses that quickly.  They’re wrong – here’s why.

Worst Spin Ever

Written By: - Date published: 10:51 am, May 11th, 2012 - 35 comments

According to John Key voters rejecting austerity is good news for the government, high unemployment is a sign of confidence in the economy, ignorance is strength, black is white, and he has a bridge to sell you.

Savings based recovery nonsense

Written By: - Date published: 3:38 pm, November 18th, 2010 - 47 comments

Bill English is always busy trying to put lipstick on the pig of our moribund economy.  His latest attempt is to argue that we are experiencing a “savings based recovery”.  There’s no such thing.  He’s just making excuses for the fact that people have no money to spend, or are desperately trying to pay down debt in these uncertain times.  Enough with the lipstick.  Enough with the empty promises of jam tomorrow — National are never going to deliver.

Captain Potty Mouth

Written By: - Date published: 12:06 pm, November 11th, 2010 - 27 comments

The PM’s Chief Press Secretary Kevin Taylor thinks he’s above those who are actually elected.  So much so he feels free to tell journalists that an elected Member, who represents the people of New Zealand who voted for him, is a “fuckwit” and that they can “quote him”. Or perhaps “Captain Panic Pants” will claim that it’s just the pressure getting to him.

Poor Bill

Written By: - Date published: 8:34 am, September 30th, 2009 - 33 comments

Bill English is teetering on the edge. National spinners are claiming that he has done what is needed to “close the issue down”. Labour are going to keep pushing. National’s next step will be to run a “poor Bill” defence. “Poor Bill has paid it back, what more can he do?”, “Poor Bill was just […]

Tip of the spear

Written By: - Date published: 12:32 pm, June 2nd, 2009 - 16 comments

You’ve done your job as a spin doctor when journalists start repeating your spin sub-consciously. The credit downgrade ‘issue’ is a great example. There was never any threat of a downgrade, as long as the tax cuts were dropped. The journalists all acted like there was a huge threat. They parroted the government’s line that […]

Spin doctors

Written By: - Date published: 3:59 pm, July 9th, 2008 - 2 comments

Crosby Textor spin the use of Crosby Textor

Written By: - Date published: 1:52 pm, July 1st, 2008 - 33 comments

I wish some journo would ask Key whether Crosby/Textor helped him with lines on how to handle questions about his using them – they must have a standard set they give their clients. Would Key really have thought of this one himself: John Key says the vast bulk of advice he takes is from the […]

Mr Key’s real concerns

Written By: - Date published: 12:49 pm, July 1st, 2008 - 37 comments

While more questions will no doubt be asked about Mr Key’s choice of hiring infamous Aussie spin-stars, Crosby/Textor, (no doubt some more of them will feature here) I thought this point raised by Barry Soper yesterday was a good one: There’s clearly a concern how this information is yet again leaking from the National Party office. I mean, […]

Fran O’Shillivan strikes again

Written By: - Date published: 9:51 am, May 6th, 2008 - 84 comments

Here’s the first par of National’s release on the rail deal: National Party Leader John Key says at a time when householders are struggling to pay the weekly bills, Helen Clark’s decision to spend the thick end of a billion dollars to buy back the rail rolling stock does not make any sense. Here’s Fran […]

How Boris won London by not being Boris

Written By: - Date published: 9:44 am, May 6th, 2008 - 13 comments

Tory candidate Boris Johnson has triumphed in the mayoral race for London in a campaign masterminded by the Australian political tactician Lynton Crosby. The Sydney Morning Herald has the story: Brought in at the end of last year, the mysterious Crosby – “you know I don’t do interviews”, he responded to an email from the […]

Fairfax reporting staggeringly awful

Written By: - Date published: 12:42 pm, April 26th, 2008 - 36 comments

This morning’s Dom Post buys into National’s “Aussie exodus” spin with a lead story claiming “A staggering one in 10 voters are considering a move to Australia” in the next twelve months. The facts, of course, are somewhat different. As we’ve shown before, as few as 0.67% of New Zealanders actually emigrate to any country […]

Power disavows $50 offender penalty

Written By: - Date published: 4:30 pm, April 2nd, 2008 - 17 comments

Duncan Garner kept Copperfield diners entertained yesterday by teasing Simon Power about the implications of National’s $50 conviction levy. We’re told that in response Power threw his hands into the air and exclaimed loudly that the policy wasn’t “his”. What an odd thing for the National Party spokesperson on law and order to say. It […]

Lies, damned lies, and statistics

Written By: - Date published: 1:26 pm, March 25th, 2008 - 32 comments

David Farrar appears to be throwing his weight in behind National Party’s “New Zealand Sucks” campaign with another misleading post on migration to Australia. Titled “The exodus grows”, DPF’s take on the most recent stats is that the rate at which people are “fleeing New Zealand” is accelerating. It’s perhaps disguised as one of David’s […]

SST recycles discredited National party spin

Written By: - Date published: 12:28 pm, March 17th, 2008 - 7 comments

Rob Stock apparently holds several awards for personal finance reporting but looks unlikely to win another based on his rehash of National Party lines in the SST this weekend. I can understand the desire to get these pesky articles to the publisher when the sun’s shining and there are better things to be doing outside […]

Yawn

Written By: - Date published: 4:47 pm, March 11th, 2008 - 11 comments

Well National’s finally got their line straight on the research fund and, despite me old mate Dancer’s prediction, they are not supporting it. It seems this one goes to AYB who picked their line perfectly. He said they’d claim the idea’s good but the model is flawed and then have cry about how it should […]

No, he meant “infrastructure”, he really, really did

Written By: - Date published: 3:47 pm, March 7th, 2008 - 27 comments

AYB’s confidence in English as a frontman for National may already have taken a knock as the second half of the dynamic duo has successfully managed his own John Key moment within hours of taking over the reins. When asked on NewstalkZB today whether National would borrow money to pay for tax cuts English managed […]

Tail-spin

Written By: - Date published: 11:12 am, February 23rd, 2008 - 73 comments

While National is trying to pretend John Key’s quote that “we would love to see wages drop” is a non-issue, behind the scenes they’re floundering. We’ve all heard the multiple and conflicting denials (“I can’t recall”, “I never said it”, “I was misquoted”, “I was talking about Australian wages”), and now thanks to a lazy […]

“The literal truth”

Written By: - Date published: 10:49 am, February 16th, 2008 - 49 comments

Fran O’Sullivan’s continuing her ongoing philosophical project of interrogating the notion of truth in her latest repetition of Kiwiblog talking points Herald column. In it she picks up on the Owen Glenn interview and from a few disparate facts weaves a story of intrigue and mystery. Or rather provides us with an insight into the […]

Key conjures up cuts

Written By: - Date published: 11:53 am, February 12th, 2008 - 10 comments

John Key tells us that he would cut ‘wasteful government spending’ to pay for upper-bracket tax cuts bigger than Labour’s cuts. But do the facts match the rhetoric? Remember National’s wastewatch website? It listed $900 million in ‘waste’ since 1999 only 0.2% of government spending, which won’t pay for many tax cuts. And most of […]

Key speech: strategic blunder?

Written By: - Date published: 2:11 pm, January 29th, 2008 - 113 comments

So this is John Key’s ambition: throwing troubled teens in boot camp, beating up on beneficiaries and criminalising our children. I’ve only had a quick read through the speech in my lunch break so it’s possible I’ve got this wrong, but I get the distinct impression that Key has made a major strategic error here. […]

Spinning the spin.

Written By: - Date published: 2:11 pm, January 20th, 2008 - 279 comments

Ruth Laugeson has an article in the Sunday Star Times about the increased numbers of communications staff employed by ministries. Entitled “Spinning govt yarn costs $47m”, the article is in many ways a lovely piece of spin in its own right. The basis of the article is that the number of spindoctors employed by the […]

Ever wonder why people call John Key “slippery”?

Written By: - Date published: 7:37 pm, December 6th, 2007 - 77 comments

Here he is being interviewed by Paul Henry on Breakfast earlier today. Key tries to slip out of answering a direct question not once, not twice, but SIX times. Notice that Key tries his pre-rehearsed “precious” line twice to start with. When it’s rejected, the slipperiness really begins in earnest. PRESENTER: Um, alright and very […]

National’s spin doesn’t stack up

Written By: - Date published: 9:58 am, December 4th, 2007 - 103 comments

National’s attempt to spin its way out of John Key’s DVD debacle doesn’t stack up. Here’s the official line: National’s campaign manager Jo de Joux blamed the production company. “Obviously, National relied on the expertise of the production company that put together the video and its soundtrack,” Ms de Joux said. “We’ll take all available […]

History repeats, part II

Written By: - Date published: 10:43 am, November 13th, 2007 - 13 comments

There’s a famous line from Joyce’s Ulysses in which the main protagonist Stephen Dedalus states “history is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake” and when I opened the Herald this morning I suddenly understood what that can mean: Now look at this one from a little ways back: Spot the difference. It […]