Free, universally popular and you can announce it immediately

One of the best political satires ever, The Thick of It, has one episode where a British Government Minister asking his assistants for a policy that’s free, universally popular and something he could announce immediately. 

 

I tried to think up such a policy myself.  Only one came to mind, but it’s a good one – get rid of government agencies’ fancy branding.  Such branding is unnecessary. While government campaigns might need a brand, there’s no need to brand WINZ.  Phase it out and there’d be virtually no cost.  With easy guidelines, design could be done on standard software.

New Political Caricature Blog

The Linesman is a new blog of digital caricatures of New Zealand politicians.   Not Sure what Bill English is supposed to be in the one above (Emperor Palpatine?), but this could be a cool resource for other political blogs.

I’ve been tagged!

The rules:

• Link to your taggee
• Post the rules
• Share seven random or weird facts about yourself
• Tag 7 random people at the end of the post with their links
• Inform those 7 they’ve been tagged by commenting on their blog

1. I name my goldfish after Popes
2. I’ve two official names
3. I’ve worn a suit in West Africa
4. I cook curry on a Tuesday
5. Frankfurt is the city I’ve most visited without staying overnight
6. I know way too much about jet planes
7. The only car vs. motorbike accident I’ve had was while driving someone to pick up a scooter.

National Front’s restart

 

The National Front are restarting themselves as a political party, but still one of nasty bigots.

 

Their website demonstrates their racism with a whites-only forum and their views on homosexuality differ only from the Third Reich by the absence of gas chambers.  Their association with the despicable Jim Saleam at their recent Flag Day shows them in their true light.

 

Amusingly their leader was described by current ally, Anton Foljambe, as an embarrassment to be associated with. 

 

I expect they want to emulate the British National Party’s modicum of success, but there just aren’t enough racists in New Zealand.

Minnow Party post election round up

While the Christian parties had 1996 to give them hope, most knew they had no chance.  While the Libertarianz and the Workers’ Party would be happy just to stand by their ideals, you have to wonder why the Alliance doesn’t just join Labour or the Greens or why the Marxists of RAM are so coy about their politics.

And then there’s the sheer embarrassment of the results.   Having poured their efforts into Mangere, the Family Party gained only 856 votes.  RAM claims 3,000 members but the overwhelming majority didn’t vote for them, they only received 405 votes.   

 

Election Day – 80s style

Unofficial iPredict Blog

I’ve set up an unofficial iPredict blog.  I thought their official blog didn’t have enough discussion of the stories behind the statistics. 

I just have to get round to putting up more stocks to comment on and actually make some comments myself.

Update:  I’ve packed in the unofficial blog.   Unfortunately the lack of interest in visiting it was matched by my lack of enthusiasm for updating it.