The Big Lie in action

Written By: - Date published: 12:30 pm, September 5th, 2014 - 13 comments
Categories: David Farrar, election 2014, labour, making shit up, national, spin - Tags: , , ,

This morning Rob Salmond did a great post about the “big lie” – the spin coming from the Right that Labour hasn’t concentrated on policy, just dirty politics.

Like clockwork, David Farrar has a post up about the latest polls, suggesting

One has Labour at 24.3% and the other at 23.8%. Their focus on hacked e-mails instead of policy  is backfiring.

Maybe he’s just picking up on the zeitgeist. After all, it would be a scary world to live in if we thought the bloggers and “unions” of the right were engaged in a deliberate strategy of spin and disinformation on behalf of Cabinet Ministers and corporations. Possibly even a story which the media might want to cover. Hypothetically.

The thing is, David Farrar isn’t a stupid man. He’s not out-of-touch with political goings-on. He doesn’t rely on the front page of Stuff to inform him about the election.

He has to know (or he can easily find out) that since Nicky Hager’s Dirty Politics was released on 13 August, gaining huge media coverage on its own merits (turns out we do live in a scary world), the Labour Party has released:

  • 31 media releases on new policy
  • 28 releases on other political issues (the skills shortage, massive power company profits, debunking National’s HomeStart spin)
  • 13 releases on Dirty Politics, mostly to do with Judith Collins’ possibly-corrupt behaviour and the allegations specifically around Phil Goff at the SIS OIA request which was supplied to Cameron Slater in a rather timely manner.

He has to have seen the opening addresses of the campaign, where Labour talked about policy and National talked about not changing horses mid-stream.

He has to have seen the huge number of detailed, fully-costed policies Labour has released.

So he knows better than he’s pretending. And it’s disappointing to see the same calculated disinformation getting pushed in the hopes of distracting people from the obvious vacuum in National’s manifesto.

(Note: I am aware DPF’s post went up before Rob’s, but as both of them regularly schedule blog posts the night before they go up, it’s still a good call on Rob’s part.)

13 comments on “The Big Lie in action ”

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  1. weka 1
    5 September 2014 at 12:48 pm

    That’s very restrained Stephanie.

    DPF is up to his eyebrows in DP. Why anyone thinks anything that comes out of his mouth at this point is reliable or useful for anything other than misleading he public is beyond me.

  2. Tom Gould 2
    5 September 2014 at 1:01 pm

    Watkins and the other big Tory chooks are running the same lines in their papers, and the big Tory shock-jocks on their radio shows, as instructed. Do they get a bonus if he gets to govern alone?

  3. Tracey 3
    5 September 2014 at 1:21 pm

    so when farrar said he was cleaning upkiwiblog, he didnt mean truth wise?

    With this and the nz on air BS thats at least two in a week.

  4. repateet 4
    5 September 2014 at 3:22 pm

    David Farrar is a bit like John Key. He sort of looks normal and on the surface acts sort of normal. Because of that people think that he doesn’t act like Cameron Slater.

    When you play cricket it doesn’t matter if a fast bowler races in, huffing and puffing, and rips them in at 153kph or a tubby little, twerpy, leg spinner waddles in a couple of steps and flights it in at 78 kph.

    It is their intention to get you out, they can both get you out.

    To mix the metaphors, David Farrar is sly and cunning and operates like a weasel or a rat. The evidence is clear and consistent.

    • aerobubble 4.1
      6 September 2014 at 9:32 am

      Hooten technique is make wide assertions that do not make sense. That for example Labour will have to bend over to Mana, or Peters, its just scaremongering has says more about Hooten need to fix the framing rather than any truth to the matter. Fact is there is no way Hooten can qualify all the potential ways the election will play out in one statement, and now after Hagers book, the shear mention of what-ifs should get him laughed off the stage. Yet no. Are media is just so servile to right wing nonsense creators. Its a if the right itself wants to hide the truth and the media has just said, your funeral.

  5. Jimbob 5
    5 September 2014 at 3:49 pm

    I think the salient point is that the media’s feeding frenzy over Dirty Politics (encouraged by some if not most of the left) has spectacularly backfired on Labour. As in it drowned them out on all the policy releases etc you mention. And now we have Matt McCarten dealing with WOBH; its got too confusing for the voters so they’re turning off the side they think is pushing this.

    • McFlock 5.1
      5 September 2014 at 4:32 pm

      1: It can only have “backfired” if labour were holding the gun. Hager’s book was another pile of shit thrown into the campaign, which Labour did not seem to have anything to do with at all.
      So at worst, Labour got splattered by a little bit of shit when national started flailing about after being struck by a shitnado.

      2: It would also be bad if labour increased but the greens dropped. What is a very salient point is that Lab+green have been slowly increasing their vote in the polls. If the nats are being overcounted in the polls, as is likely based on previous elections, then it’s actually quite a tight race for two weeks out.

  6. AmaKiwi 6
    5 September 2014 at 4:22 pm

    Mike Williams says National’s result in the last election was more than 5% lower than National had been in ANY of the preceding 80 published polls!

    Cell phone users are NOT polled. Although technically possible, it is much too expensive. (This from a professional NZ pollster with 30+ years expertise.)

    The number of cell phone users without land lines has steadily increased. The vast majority of them will vote Left. Kim Dotcom: “My supporters don’t know what a land line is.”

    You can safely knock 5% off the poll projections for National. But given how rare land lines are amongst you people, the number is probably 8% to 10%.

    Look at the polls with these new numbers and National is LOSING, badly.

    The polls are the Right Wing’s biggest campaign lie.

    • Bob 6.1
      5 September 2014 at 4:41 pm

      With logic like yours (from a professional NZ pollster with 30+ years expertise) it is no wonder the left don’t believe the polls! You just make numbers up left right and center!

      • One Anonymous Bloke 6.1.1
        6 September 2014 at 6:08 am

        Compare the polls over the years with the election results. There’s clear bias. Remember how the Nats were going to govern alone in 2011 and ended up requiring the vote of a convicted criminal instead?

        The polls are tighter now than they were then, and then there’s this:

        Looking here, looking there, John Key never seems to tire of looking at things. His interactions with the cooing public buoy him.

        Andrea Vance.

        The teflon is gone.

  7. reason 7
    5 September 2014 at 6:01 pm

    Farrars a dishonest creepy two faced shit.

    Whats new ?

  8. Rob 8
    5 September 2014 at 11:53 pm

    Let’s face it Labour has hardly got a mention in the news media over the time of these polls as all media have been focused on DP
    Cunliffe came out strong in the first debate but stuffed up the CGT in and after the Second
    This is a policy they should drop as it gives the Natz lots of opportunity
    They should keep asking Natz to show where the money is for tax cuts?
    Probably GST increases!!