Table of Contents
Boss-Lady’s gaffe: “We drum in that messaging around the dangers of Covid pretty diligently for a full two-week period of sustained propaganda” on Monday was just too big, and too public to ignore. So her sycophants did as sycophants do, and went in to bat for her:
“The tin-foil hat, anti-5G and anti-1080 brigades – as well as any of the Prime Minister’s political opponents – now has it on record: the Government has been propagandising Kiwis!
Yes; dear. In fact all Ardern ever does is propagandise: child poverty the greatest issue facing the country – I’ll fix it. House prices out-of-control – I’ll fix it. Covid – I’ll fix it. Result 1: failure. Result 2: failure. Result 3: failure.
The Boss-Lady is a failure at everything except propaganda.
The timing of her gaffe was appropriate: just over one year ago, on March 1st 2020 she was drumming in the non-dangers of Covid for a full two-week period of sustained propaganda; and her foil, her Health Ministry, was right behind her. Relax they said. Sniffle? So what? Wash your hands!
Three days later, on March 4th, they cheerily announced new cases, with not a furrowed prime-ministerial brow in sight. She’ll be right. Very low chance of infection said the PM, hold your horses, don’t panic, we have a misery-fest in 11 days that will cheer everybody up, especially my publicists; don’t worry, be happy. Oh, and by the way, Covid Case 2 has been out and about a bit, including Flight 5013 AKL-PMR.
March 4th was also the day they hatched the plan to control the narrative. In a precursor to the pretentious ‘single source of truth’ slogan, the MOH declared, “We’ve got the trusted facts on Covid 19”. Trusted facts almost simultaneously declared they had the facts wrong, it was Flight 5103.
On March 6th the country’s top epidemiologists, whose advice the PM always trusts and acts upon, urged two actions: the closing of the borders, and the forming of a pan-political grouping to handle the looming pandemic. She bluntly ignored both requests.
Nek minnit Trump closed the USA’s borders to Europe; ‘What a dope’ said Camp Cindy, ‘the worst thing eva’, ‘Orange-man bad’, while the PM’s laid-back “continued low key approach” was much more appropriate and “in keeping with the national character”.
Quizzed about the wisdom of continuing with the mosque-shooting anniversary, Ardern deflected to the Mayor of Christchurch – her city, her call, she said to the many shaking heads as she flew in for Friday prayers on the 13th. MOH, obviously, backed her sustained propaganda; just ‘Stay home if you feel unwell,’ they said, ‘and wash your hands.’
That same day Saint Bloomfield was interrogated as to why tests were not being conducted at the borders, even rudimentary ones; ‘cos’, he said, “of the danger of false-positives” (yes, really!) and, whatever: ‘if they feel crook they can ask to see a nurse’.
And there you have it; March 1st-14th 2020: “a full two-week period of sustained propaganda” when Covid was but a trifling nuisance.
On the 14th the narrative was to suddenly change and we would be in for another “full two-week period of sustained propaganda”, but the new narrative would posit Covid as public-enemy No.1, plague incarnate, of proportions biblical, and she, the Boss-Lady, would be our miraculous saviour, pulling us all back from the very brink of our graves.
Pass the sick-bucket, please.
Please share this article so that others can discover The BFD