An Open Letter to the Republic of New Zealand Party

Chaps I see you are ’reviewing‘ your site.  I hope you review your whole party.  Your elections results can’t be much more than you’d get from mistaken votes alone.  

  

There was not one thing you did competently during the election campaign, little campaigning that there was.  You couldn’t even get the basic paper work right.  Bumbling aside, you give republicanism a bad name by using it as a cover for your primary purpose of promoting your brand of “Men’s Rights”.  Stick to men’s rights and you may make a contribution without besmirching other causes with your antics.

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.

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.   

 

Neo-Nazis vs. Hippies & Anarchists

In what’s become a biennial event, the Far Right and Left are having another Labour Weekend protest and counter-protest. 

This’ll be the first notable outing of Kyle Chapman’s Nationalist Alliance, which will no doubt prove just to be the same old collection of skinheads and white supremacists.   On the other side the plain anti-racists will no doubt be accompanied by the masked anti-bypass/GE/Bush/deodorant crowd who’ll help things get messy. 

Apparently, the Nationalist Alliance are expecting to gather 100 people for what they hope will move them beyond the politicle sideshows of their past efforts.  That won’t happen.

iPredict

Having made a few predictions, I’ve backed myself on iPredict. 

In Wellington Central I’m backing Robertson (bought 25 at 80c) but think Franks is underpriced (bought 14 at 15c but have a sell order for 18.7c).

For the overall election outcome I’ve shorted both a National majority (50 at 23.41c) and National getting more than 48% (14 shares but an order to cover that should it reach 44c). Also I’ve bought Clark remaining PM (100 at 26c but selling for 30c, which tonight’s poll supports).

I’ve also lost 15c by misreading a bet on the OCR.

Minnow Parties exceeding low standards

With the real campaign having kicked off, the efforts of two minnow parties stood out for me.  

RAM’s anti-GST on food petition, which leveraged their membership, is great grass roots organisation.  This issue could have been picked up by any of the populist parties but only RAM put runs on the board with it.  They should crack four figures voting results – a significant minnow achievement.

The Family Party clearly took on board the lessons of Destiny’s 2005 campaign.  Their coherent, persistent and active campaign to win South Auckland seats has far exceeded minnows’ normal low standards.

Do ‘family values’ mean being thick?

The Family Party is counting on South Auckland voters being stupid or ambivalent about economic policy.   The party has rather right-wing economic policy.  The voters it is pursuing have always voted  Labour (economically left wing). 

The Family Party must be assuming stupidity or ambivalence if they expect to win seats in South Auckland voters.  This is, of course, not even considering that these voters might not want to create another coalition partner for National in Parliament.   

I’m guessing people in Mangere, Manukau East and Manurewa aren’t that unsophisticated.

Guess the candidate

I received one of my first pieces of junk mail for the upcoming election.  What struck me was, as you can see, how motherhood and apple pie the slogans on it were.

 

These could be slogans for the majority of the candidates standing.  The worst thing about this stuff is that the candidate using it is smart enough to have come up with something much better. 

Which candidate? Click here (although you if you’re able to be fooled by the wonders of Microsoft Paint you may be a little confused )