Thank you very much for your kind contagion, thank you very much ...

Good to see the government - after a stunningly successful Round One with COVID - has decided to  simply offer us all up to the virus so Ardern can keep her hare-brained promise to open up the country for Christmas.

First we were going to eradicate Delta, just like we did last time Covid showed its face here.  That was the best policy and we were probably only a couple of weeks from success.  But the government's constant spineless shifting of lines and the stupid arrogant selfishness of some made it harder and kept pushing out the eradication horizon.  It was and is and always will be outlandish to hear people complaining about how lockdowns are damaging the economy or people's mental health or social relationships; and then advocating the sort of stupid ideas that make things even worse.  Tired of sitting about at home?  Try having COVID and see how you like that.  Think your business is suffering?  See how it goes when you are continually losing staff and customers and not able to run a supply chain as COVID devastates every aspect of the economy.

The solution was, of course, getting people vaccinated and so it seemed sensible to set a target; when the government announced we were going to open up when we got 90% of the population double vaxxed,  I could live with that.  It would have meant punishing ongoing economic and health problems, a steady stream of deaths and sicknesses.  But a highly vaccinated population would have meant only long term misery, not catastrophe.

Now we're looking at the government shrugging its shoulders and giving up, apparently because of a slight shift in the polls and because they are afflicted by the strange delusion that anyone listens to Judith Collins.  Not even Judith Collins listens to Judith Collins.  But for some reason the government do and decide to adopt what ever random spluttering she produced on Morning Report three weeks ago.

Given the critical lack of spine in the government, they'll probably relent on the ban on unvaccinated workers in health and education, and let them all back in, bringing their virus spreading super-potential with them.  Nice.

It isn't how you run a country.  It isn't how you look after people.

Subliminal campaigning?

Spotted on Stuff:

Says it all, really.

The diagnosis isn't good, Judith

Watching National's Health spokesman, Dr Shane Reti, on TVNZ yesterday morning was instructive:

In four minutes, he managed to undermine both his leader and deputy leader - refusing to twist th knife Collins had attempted to plant in Labour, by acknowledging the government was doing "the best they can" and they were confronted with a "hard problem" and referencing a "productive" meeting with Health Minister Chris Hipkins.

This moderate - dare I say commendably mature attitude? - distances him from Collins' complaint about the government withholding information from National and Brownlee's conspiratioral mutterings and indicates a fissure between three of the four most important people in the putative National government just weeks out from the election.

If the chap you've got lined up to be Health minister is quietly signalling he doesn't agree with the leader - in the middle of a pandemic - it doesn't give voters many reasons to be enthusiastic for you.

Covid is kinda of a big deal in 2020 and National have blown their chance to actually make the government look shakey on it by being even shakier themselves.

With the polls suggesting National will struggle to reach the 35% threshold Collins has indicated represents 'victory' in her curiously inverted world, perhaps Reti is looking beyond the election, aware that he has a future – either in in politics, academe or medicine – and Collins and Brownlee do not?

He seems to represent a less dangerous future for National and - given there will occasionally have to be National governments - that needs to be encouraged.  All the more reason for centrists inclined to (sometimes) support National to vote AGAINST the party this year - to crush the Collins leadership and drive her faction (promoted by Cameron Slater and his allies through dirty tricks and blackmail, as outlined in Dirty Politics) out of the party.

Election 2014!! The live, rolling, increasingly intoxicated Post From Hell

7.00 - Drinking red (naturally) wine.  A 2011 Mt hector Pinot Noir.  Very nice it is too - likely the last nice thing I may experience for the next couple of hours.  We're doomed, I tell you, doomed!  And if we're not doomed, we may be in even bigger trouble.  Imagine if the person who scheduled the NZ Inc. announcement for the same day as Dotcom's Big Disappointment gets a hand on the levers of power ...

So I am NOT anticipating a good night.  I expect John Key's corrupt, incompetent government to be returned for another three years.  This prospect is, of course, terrible.  The only thing worse might be if it includes ACT.

Still, every cloud has a silver lining.  The next few months should see the slow motion destruction of John Key's reputation and his government's exposure as a bunch of miserable, self-serving conniving liars as Dirty Politics continues to corrode.  By 2017, even the most vindictive lefties and stalwart Tories will be desperate to see National put out of its misery.

So let's get on with it ..

7.01 - Nothing too bad so far.  Other than Mike Hosking.  Which is quite bad enough, really.

7.04 - Will this be a 2005 election, where Labour start miles behind and slowly fights its way back, or like 2008 and and 2011, where Labour starts behind and stays behind?

If it is like the last two, we can put the myth of the mighty Labour vote in South Auckland to bed once and for all - whatever happened in 2005 must have been a once-off.

7.05 - Mike Hosking officially says something stupid, wondering if Labour 'might' increase their share of the vote from 19% of early votes.  took him just five minutes.  Which is probably an improvement.

7.10  Early numbers show the Nats on 50.9% with 3.5% counted ... Are they about to dip under 50%? that's a pretty quick falling away.  A percent off for every percent counted.  Long may it continue!

7.13 - Nats on 50%, falling fast.  Dare I say they will end up on 40%?

7.16 - A majority of the 7.2% of votes counted reject John Key!  There is hope for the nation!

7.19 - The conservatives are hovering about 4.6%.  In the interests of democracy, I'd rather the they got 5.1% rather than 4.9%.  I hate to see votes wasted, even when they are for ridiculous parties.  I'd much prefer to see then get no votes at all, of course.

7.23 - If this is going to be a 2005 election, then National could be in trouble.  In 2005, Labour started very far behind (just like tonight) and dragged it back at 1% per 10% counted.  If that happens tonight, then Labour will be comfortably above 30%.  Of course, that didn't happen in 2008 and 2011, so the odds are it won't happen ...

7.24 - Mike Hosking must have almost choked on that grudging praise for Cunliffe - "A better opponent" than anticipated!  Piss off, Mike!

7.29 - National on 48.6, so falling away nicely.  But where is it going?  Labour seem stuck on 23.5%.

19.31 - 431 people in Epsom have voted for Christine Ranking (thus far)?  Oh dear.

19.37 - Mike Hosking is a national embarrassment.

19.42 - Has everyone stopped counting?  We've been stuck about 15% for yonks.

19.50 - Just piss off, Mike Hosking, with your inane right-wing, biased unprofessional bleating.

19.56 - Ahahahahahaha.  One of Hosking's studio commentators just tried to mention Nick Hager.  Hosking immediately tried to cut him off and then terminated the conversation.  What a dick.

20.04 - Count, New Zealand!

20.08 - Percentage counted is starting to move again.  18.2% in.  Unfortunately, National are still stubbornly above 48%.  Have they not read the script?

20.10 - Greens are in ‘Desperate trouble’ according to Hosking. I think I might be complaining, tomorrow, when the hangover clears.  They've actually just topped 10%, so building nicely.

20.17 - Insanely, National's vote is going UP as more votes are counted.  Only very marginally, from about 48.4% to 48.5% - but it is still abhorrent and wrong and entirely at odds with the Laws of Electoral Physics.

20.20 - Labour might FINALLY be about to trip over 24%.  EDIT - That was based on TV1 figures.  But the official Election Results website still has them stuck below what TV1 is showing.

20.27 - According to the Election results website, National's share of the vote is climbing.  It's now at 48.57.  This is MADNESS!!

20.28 - 48.71%.

20.29 - 48.75%

20.32 - 48.81% ... Then 48.79% ... THE TIDE HAS TURNED!!

20.33 - Unfortunately, Labour are also going backwards.  23.70%.

20.34 - National 48.83.  Damn it, I said THE TIDE HAS TURNED!!  Listen to me, New Zealand.

20.35 - National collapse to 48.75%.  Mwahahahahaha!  The rout commences!  I'm going to stop doing this now ...

20.40 - So, a quarter of the votes have been counted.  National are sitting on 48%.  Labour are mired on 23.5%.  The Greens and NZ First are both about 9-10%.  Mana will get 2 MPs on current figures.  Ditto Maori.  Obviously, that's good news for one party but not for the other.  Singletons for ACT and UF.

I'm prediciting the Labour and the Greens may get another 3%.  But hopes (or fears) of a grand coalition of the left are looking very faint.

20.43 - And no sooner do I post that than National's share of the vote goes up and Labour's goes down ... 48.84% versus 23.75%.  The horror!  The horror!

20.49  - National hit 49% of the party vote. (And then immediately drop back to 48.96% .. I feel like I'm being toyed with!)

20.51 - Michelle Boag sounds sane compared to Mike Hosking.

20.52 - National plummet to 48.90%!!  They are being driven from the field in total disorder!!

21.00 - We have a third of the vote in now.  National are still riding very high at 48.9% of the vote.  Labour are sinking, slowly.  And everything else is as it was 20 minutes ago, when we had a fifth in.  Once we get up to half way, I think we may see a bit of movement in the left vote.  Upwards movement, I mean.  But by that point, the amount of vote left to effect a change with will be very, very small.

21.04 - Colin Craig doesn't like "the system" - presumably he means MMP.  Does he actually believe he would be doing better under First Past The Post?

21.06 - Internet Mana have just vanished from the Election Results website 'Sets' column.  Davis must be sneaking ahead.  I think Harawira will get there in the end, but it is carnage out there.  Carnage.

21.10 - National only getting 62 seats, down from 62 a moment ago.  Unfortunately, that's at least 10 too many.  Labour finally creep up to 31 seats.  31.

21.12 - Election Results website has half the results in.  Nothing has changed.  National still just under 49%.  Labour just under 24%.  Yes, you read that right.  Twenty four per cent.  Greens and NZ First both under 10%.  Conservatives and IMP heading to the dustbin of history.

21.16 - It's 2011 all over again.  Only with (thus far) less voting for the left.

21.18 - 55.9% counted and Labour mustering up some courage and edging up to the big bad 24% mark ...

21.22 - Whatever the final result in Te Tai Tokerau, I did say that linking up with Kim Dotcom was a very bad idea.  I'm rather sad that I'm being proven right.

21.24 - National currently able to govern alone, assuming the Conservatives don't enjoy a late surge.

21.25 - Labour teeters on the edge at 23.96% of the vote!  Come on!  You can do it!

21.26 - 24%!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Next goal!  Matching Phil Goff's 27.48%!!

21.27 - 24.02%!  The Long March has started!  Onwards to victory!

21.30  - Labour negatively surge to 23.95%  A cunning flanking move that will leave National nonplussed!

21.36 - On a more serious note, Labour seem to have moved decisively across the 24% boundary.  Yay!!  Almost 1 in 4 voting New Zealanders was not totally repelled by Labour!!  And National are sinking like a very light, floaty stone, all the way down to 48.67%!  This is massive and John Key really must resign.  Right now.

21.36 - Some (comparatively) serious movement with the Labour numbers now.  24.19%.  Cunliffe might just get enough to hang on.

21.42 - National now definitely trending downwards.  Labour moving upwards.  Too little, too late, with 75% counted.  How could the left have screwed this up so badly?

21.54 - greens building, slowly.  They need to get to 12%, or 13% for respectabilty.  I think they will make it, because once the conservative wasted vote is taken out, they'll have a bigger share of the leftovers, and specials and so on.

22.07 - Well, at least we can discard the comforting myth of the 'big urban centres coming in late.'  Guess what?  Whoever swung it for Labour late in the day in 2005 isn't there any more.  If they were, they'd have shown up tonight.  They've managed to do worse than in 2011 and they had almost everything going in their favour.  And.  They.  Blew.  It.

22.14 - If ... IF ... Hone survives in Te Tai Tokerau ... Perhaps he'll realise the link up with the Internet Party was utterly stupid.  He could have done it by himself.  Perhaps - just perhaps - he might have brought another MP with him.  He could have looked to being the main party of the Maori seats.  But.  He.  Also.  Blew.  It.

22.26 - So, should David Cunliffe resign?  I don't care.  This isn't about Cunliffe.  If every single vote that was lost between 2011 and 2014 was lost because of Cunliffe, it was hardly important.  There is a deeper issue here than who fronts at PMQs.  Cunliffe is perfectly adequate (as Shearer was perfectly adequate, and Goff was perfectly adequate)  but he is leading a party that is intent on self destruction.

Arguing with the leftier left for the last three years over on the Standard, I've become unhappily convinced there is a curious self destructive urge on the left.  They are so possessed by hatred of the middleclasses that they have lost sight of the real enemy.

Please, just accept, that middle classes are people too, and Social Democrats are as viable members of the Labour party as Socialists. Stop fighting them. Look where it has got you. 24%. Outstanding.

YOU CAN NOT WIN WITH OUT THE CENTRE.

There are enough sane, decent, middle class, who can be united with the working class to win every election. They are not the enem.

Remember the 99% vs the 1%?

22.35 - Laila Harre gets to oversee the destruction of another party.  Three hours ago I had respect for her.  Now she's successfully destroyed two leftwing parties.

22.38 - On a more positive note, ACT have only 0.68% of the vote.  Over 99% of New Zealanders are not insane.

22.42 - Labour make a late surge to 24.5%!!!  It ain't over until the fat lady sings!

22.46 - OMG!! I'd completely forgotten about the contest in Palmerston North, between Iain Lees Galloway and Jono Naylor.  It turns out that - against the odds - I've managed to be on the winning side in at least one election in 2014.  Normal service will be resumed shortly, I'm sure ... Lees-Galloway won, comfortably, and given the current state of theparty must be wondering if he might be in charge in 2017.  It isn't a ery broad, or deep, talent pool.

22.49 - Cunliffe stayed put for ages.  He must have been watching the percentages to see if he could survive.  What was his 'hang on' figure??????????????????????  Surely not 24.5%??

23.03 Obviously, it was 24.5%.

23.10 - National currently on 61 seats, but that's including (I think) the conservatives in the equation and not including special votes.  They might still get pushed down below 50% ... It is a measure of how disappointing this night has been that the idea of National being denied the chance to govern alone feels like a victory.

23.19 - Judith Collins retuned with a majority of almost 5000.  The icing on tonight's cake of shit.

23.37 - Bloody Hell.  Keys forcing me to crack open the scotch.

23.44 - Actually, with more time to consider the strategic situation, the return of Collins to the front bench is the best outcome we can hope for … Should make 2017 a walk in the (red) park.

23.47 - As if the night could not get any worse, I've jsut realised Mike Hosking has been proven right all down the line.  Disaster for Labour.  Disaster for Mana.  Disaster for the Greens.  Triumph for Hosking.

23.50 - Mana polled 5 times as much as United Future.  The Conservatives polled EIGHTEEN times more than United Future.  guess which party gets an MP?

RIP The Career of Judith Collins

Before every election, I like to re-read Nick Hager's The Hollow Men, just to remind myself of the sort of behaviours the neo-right is capable of.  This year's reading has been delayed a bit because I've been busy reading another Hager tome, Dirty Politics.  Reading them simultaneously creates a rather jarring effect, as characters that loom large in one have (Matthew Hooton) virtually disappeared in the other; or minor players in one (Judith Collins and Jason Ede) emerge on a gargantuan scale in the sequel; or have changed from noble to ignoble, in the manner of Kathrine Rich.

It is worth noting that it was Brash's sacking of Rich in January 2005, that ushered in the Crusher.  Rich had failed to voice adequate support to the Dear Leader's psychotic views on beneficiaries, and so she lost her portfolios and front bench positions.  As Hagar notes, ""He gave the job to an MP called Judith Collins, whose views on welfare would have fitted comfortably into the ACT party."

Perhaps there was something of a portend there, if we had but known!  Collins would continue to prosper under Key, and this should have served as a warning to all that Key's sweet nothings about being a different sort of politician and rejecting the negativity and nastiness of Brash's tenure were worthless words of the hollowest of men.

But we didn't know, and we let the cheesy grin and gurning and the vague sense of likeable charm and h-doesn't-wear-shoes-as-he-pads-about-his-million-dollar-pad padding that passes as journalism bamboozle us.  And, it seems, will still let it work its sickly spell in a couple of week's time, since it seems no amount of dirt can quite besmirch Key's smug smile.

But, back to Judith Collins.  She plays only a very small part in The Hollow Men, rating just two entries in the index.  The first is the announcement of her promotion, above.  The second is a couple of pages later, when Bill English is so moved by her incompetence to send an email to Brash to express concern:

The email began by discussing two presentations that MP Judith Collins had made to the caucus, one on health policy and one on family.  'I thought the health presentation on caucus was awful,' he wrote, 'and I am told Judith's family presentation was worse.   I am not one the caucus complains to, except for today, so it must have been pretty bad.'

'There are a few lessons here,' he said.  Brash's strategy team had been 'pushing Judith [Collins] as a star' but she was a second year MP 'pushed beyond her capacity' into a hard portfolio and 'with an unfortunately high estimation of her own competence.'  Collins, 'with apparent backing from the top,' had 'spent too much time cultivating the media herself and believing the resulting publicity.  She will find it hard to recover her credibility in caucus where she has been a tough critic of her colleagues behind the scenes and they know it.'

It is spookily prescient.  A political bully who was backed from the top who mistook her bluster for brilliance and who pushed her further than her limited talent justified.  An rogue MP who clumsily attempted to manipulate the media to suit her own agenda.  An arrogant ideologue who seemed convinced of her own unerring power and righteousness - who cares about the means because the ends must be good, because they are my ends?

Such was The Crusher, a strange phenomenon that blighted New Zealand politics for a few years, her rise and fall neatly marked by the publication of Hager's two books.

If political careers had headstones, 'Pushed beyond her capacity' would probably do nicely for hers.

Judith! Judith! Judith! Go! Go! Go!

I've not bee posting on the Dirt Politics fiasco simpl because it has been moving too fast for me to keep up up with.

(Unlike John Key, I have read the book.)

But now we have reached a somewhat odd pass where when things should be happening, but they aren't.  I refer, of course, to the sacking or resignation of Judith Collins, who claimed she didn't leak Simon Pleasant's identity to Cameron Slater, and who also claims she didn't leak Browyn Pullar's identity either.

One of these claims we now know is massively untrue, as we've seen the emails where she tells Slater who Simon Pleasants is and what he does for a living.

The other?  Well, she SAYS she didn't tell Slater who Pullar was.  And we'd take her word for it, wouldn't we?  I men, it isn't like she has a history of lying about what she has said or done.  We trust you, Judith.  Totally.  It isn't like you've been exposed as a frequent liar about your influence peddling and abuses of power, or anything.

It is quite strange watching this car crash in slow motion.  And the hapless defences offered by the supposedly media savvy and unfazeable John Key provide no end of amusement.  But the uselessness of the journalists interrogating him is annoying.  They need to challenge him on specifics, shoot down every airy generality he tries to foist on us.  It isn't good enough to hear him getting away with waffle when we're talking about the rank corruption in New Zealand's democracy.  He's in charge of it, and he needs to be held to account by our representatives in the media.

Every time I hear Key bleat, “The left do this too,” I really wish the journalists would challenge him on it:

 “When, Mr Key, have ‘the left’ abused their ministerial position to leak the identity of a public servant to an attack blog, so they can be held up to public abuse and threats? When have ‘the left’ abused the OIA process by alerting people to when information is being released and expediting the process?”

Anyway, Collins has utterly, obviously lied, as she told Key she didn’t leak the name, just the job title (which is a bit like Slater’s attempts to get round name suppression). But it is right there in the email.  While she claims she didn't do it.

Yesterday, Mr Key said he’d asked Ms Collins about the release of the civil servant’s name, identified as Simon Pleasants, and she told him she’d only passed on the job title to the blogger.

Surely, she’s got to go after this? Key can’t let her carry on making him look really stupid.

Come on, Judith.  If Pleasants' name was already linked to the leaking of Bill English's expenses claim, it shouldn't be hard for you to prove that.  Your failure to face up to very credible charges of misconduct makes you look, well, just a bit guilty.  Follow the lead of Britain's Joanthan Aitken!  Take up the trusty sword of truth and the trusty shield of fair play!  Smite the liars and smearers!

Just don't ask what happened to Aitken ...