John Key is on Breakfast as I type this, and I'm impressed. OK, I freely admit that I am slightly biased, but it was an excellent performance from Key. I'll post the video later in the morning.
What impressed me most was his challenge to Helen Clark to condone or condemn the secret recordings which are now being leaked to the media. Referring to Clark's "hard hats" comment of a few weeks ago, Key said it's now clear what that means, and he has laid out a clear marker between the way National will approach the campaign and the approach he expects Labour to take. Using phrases like "a new low level of gutter politics" and "desperate to hold on for another term" Key has pledged that National will not resort to that level.
I reckon that is a winning strategy. I commented on another blog last night that it will only take another leaked conversation for the tide to turn against Labour. Why? Well, I reckon that Kiwis fundamentally have a sense of fair play. And we're not stupid. It's clear that these "leaks" were staged. I commented last night that in the English case, the "interviewer" kept turning back to Kiwibank until he got the answer he wanted. It was a set-up. I suspect the Smith transcript, when released, will show the same tactics.
Remember 2005? Scare tactics from Labour, demonising the EB? Labour managed to create a perception that the Nats weren't playing fair, and it was enough to tip the balance. But this year the boot is on the other foot. We now know that the EB dfid nothing illegal. The infamous anti-Green pamphlet has never been debunked as untrue. As The Who said, "We won't get fooled again".
Let Labour play dirty. All that will do is reinforce the perception that Clark, Cullen & co are power-crazed, arrogant and out of touch with the proverbial man-in-the-street, and that it is indeed time for a change.
UPDATE: Watch the Key interview here
5 comments:
The question is not whether this person is a member of a the labour party - it's whether they are paid by the Leader's Office or the EMPU.
Either way, it's taxpayer money being used to rort an election. It should lead to jail time.
You may be right about kiwis' sense of fair play. I'd like to think that's true, and that dirty tactics wouldn't play as well here as they are in the US right now. (But, remember 1975; Muldoon did very well appealing to kiwis' basest prejudices.)
On the other hand, as Joe Atkinson points out in this morning's Herald, the 'punters' can be quite naive about how politics works, and these revelations may indeed scare the horses. Or was that cattle?
JP - maybe it's sheeple! And I like to think we've moved on from the Dancing Cossacks of 1975, although I confess to having been one of Rob's Mob at that time - more for the quality of the Young Nats's parties than any political ideology though!
Yes, I got to a few YN parties in that era. I remember one scion of a well-known Auckland family drinking himself unconscious. Is that what you mean by quality?
Also, does the first commenter "Anonymous" have any evidence whatsoever that the taper(s) were paid by the PM's Office or the EPMU? Or is this just scurrilous dirt-mongering by the right?
JP - Given that Joe "the Catering King" Walding was the Labour MP for Palmy until 1975 then again after the 1978 election, the food at the Labour dos was probably better, but the Young Nats had better parties. I have fond memories of one in a woolshed at Halcombe, attended by a large number of nurses...
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