Claire Trevett claims that the government is faltering in its determination to be ‘open and transparent’. I assume that she has had a total memory fade when it came to Clare Curran, Derek Handley, Karel Sroubek, Ritchie Hardcore and so on. Still, it all adds to my theory that, even
What exactly is John Armstrong smoking? What exactly makes him think that the Greens have ‘shed’ their loony left image? It has largely gone unnoticed, but the Greens have managed to achieve something of special importance during their first stint as a partner in Government. The party has got shot
Well, well, well… no, that was not intended as a pun. The fact that we have closed down future oil and gas permits has already started to have an effect on the economy, at a time when things are definitely turning downwards. The departure of Chevron and Equinor from New
Kiwibuild was always a disaster waiting to happen. It was clear in the 2017 election campaign that Labour had no understanding of the issues affecting the home building industry, and in fact they, and their buddies the Greens, were a big part of the problem, constantly voting against proposed changes
Don’t make me laugh… I have talked before about Henry Cooke. As political writers go, I’m sorry mate… you are way out of your depth. You really need a good editor to pull your sillier ideas into line. These days, just about every article is an opinion article,
… says James Cameron. I loved Titanic and Avatar, just like I loved Love Actually and The Remains of the Day, both starring Emma Thompson. These days, though, I am sick of these people, clever though they are, telling everyone else how they should live. At least James Cameron lives the
It is a shame to see National going through the same painful process that Labour went through after losing the 2008 election. Phil Goff took the poisoned chalice and became leader of the opposition, but he didn’t last long. Things spiralled downwards from there for Labour, until Andrew Little
This is going to become a weekly column. I took it upon myself to write articles in the last couple of weeks about how the sycophantic media always throws out a baby story when the government has had a bad week. I must admit, though that I didn’t expect
So this government is trying to get as many of us onto public transport as possible. It is supposedly good for the planet, although I have driven behind some of those diesel buses, and the clouds spewing out of the back end of many of them can be pretty disgusting.
We say on this blog all the time, that this government would be in a lot more trouble if it did not have a very compliant media. Most of the media in this country let the government off the hook: from the Young Labour camp scandal to the Karel Sroubek
I have been intending to write an article about the speaker this week, mainly because everything seems to have gone quiet on his accusations of rape against a parliamentary staffer. It both amazes and frightens me the way no one in this government ever seems to be held to account,
The story of refugee Ibrahim Aziz, who is apparently leaving the country to start a new life in Malaysia, has highlighted a real problem with our increased refugee intake; once they leave the resettlement centre, we have nowhere for them to live. That is hardly surprising when the number of
Why do the pollsters get it so wrong? In the 2016 US election, the polls showed Hillary Clinton had an 85% chance of winning. Polls in the recent Australian election had Labor certain to win. Brexit polls showed that Remainers outnumbered Leavers by a large margin. Going back as far
The government had another rugged week. The Treasury ‘hack’ scandal will not go away, and now she is rightly being criticised for not bothering to attend the celebrations for the 75th anniversary of D-Day in the UK. Lord knows, she practically never misses an opportunity to show off overseas, but
The vultures are circling around Gabriel Makhlouf. He is supposedly heading to Ireland to take up a senior role there at the end of the month, but that has become a problem in itself. Now that his behaviour over the ‘hack’ of the Treasury website has been shown to be
Tony Alexander’s Weekly Overview is particularly good this week. One of the topics he discusses in detail is the arrogance to be found in the top echelons of the public sector. There once was a time when we knew that we could trust our public service, and those who
