Nobody could call Simon Bridges a great leader of the opposition. It is the worst position in politics, with him becoming leader straight after an election loss. No one wants to go there, but there he is. He is a smart man, but he doesn’t have great communication skills, and he is up against a prime minister who is incompetent but presents well, communicates well and happens to be on the right side of history for a female premier.
Add to that, Jacinda always does well in a crisis, because she soft pedals everything with her brand of kindness. She has reached the point of sainthood recently, again not because of competence, but rather because she presents like a nurse at the bedside with a teddy bear. The world is praising her because of her success against COVID-19. You will note that it does not praise Australia’s Scott Morrison in the same way, and yet he has a slightly better record against the virus than Jacinda, and he hasn’t shut down the economy to do it. But Morrison is a man, he is a conservative, and he is all out of teddy bears. He can’t win against Jacinda either.
But even if you accept that Simon is on a hiding to nothing against Jacinda, there was something very strange about the way he has been treated in the past week. When Jacinda announced another week of lockdown, many people with an eye on the economy groaned, Simon included. We don’t have a lot of cases of the virus, we have had few deaths, and yet we will be in total lockdown for 5 weeks, and almost total lockdown for another 2. The effect on the economy is worsening every day, and the leader of the opposition has the right to point that out. But the reaction was swift and deadly. He was accused of politicising an emergency; of being out of touch, when all he was doing was questioning a government decision. That is what democracy is all about, and those calling him ‘out of touch’ should think a bit harder about how they are effectively supporting a government that has essentially taken away all our freedoms and all our rights.
The media got stuck into him, talking over him, asking him questions and refusing to let him answer (a common trick of lefty journalists against conservative MPs) and speculation started again about a coup within National. Within a few days, he was all but done. While I was still trying to work out what exactly he had done to deserve all of this, the next stage hit, and the real nastiness got going.
A Newspaper reports:
A message sent on Facebook has led to a man being arrested and charged with threatening to kill National Party leader Simon Bridges, the second alleged threat in a matter of days.
Police have charged a second person for sending a Facebook message threatening to kill National Party leader Simon Bridges.
The prosecution comes 24 hours after the Herald revealed a Kawerau man was arrested for making a similar alleged threat on social media threat against Bridges.
He appeared in the Whakatane District Court on Thursday charged with threatening to kill, or cause grievous bodily harm, to Bridges and his family.
Yes, there are always crazies out there, and Bridges is not the first politician to receive death threats, although threatening his family is going way too far in my opinion. But again, I have to ask; what exactly did he do to deserve this horrible reaction?
While looking out for pictures online of him eating kittens or something equally obnoxious, I have been quite shocked at some of the posts on Facebook. (I avoid politics on Facebook as, for me, it is about family and friends.) These are from people who don’t normally post about politics, and often just post jokes or fun memes.
Okay, that’s not very terrible, although it comes from someone who doesn’t normally post political items. Then there was this.
Is someone really trying to say that Jacinda knows what she is talking about? Seriously?
All of these have been posted in the last few days.
I have heard the accusations that Labour is behind this, but I struggle with that. In the midst of a pandemic, Jacinda’s star has never shone more brightly, and Simon Bridges is no threat to her at the moment. But there does seem to be a concerted effort to discredit Simon, and while he is no great leader, I am fairly certain he does not deserve this.
I know many of you don’t like him, but remember this. If whoever is behind this can do it to someone you dislike, they can also do it to someone you like. The same could happen to Judith Collins in a few months time. Never forget it.
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