No party ever wants to lose an election but if it has to lose one, this might be just the one, judging by the economic weather forecasts.
Thus, amidst the delight at the polls there is here and there in the National party a tiny discomfort that in government rough economic weather could sink its ship.
Paul Hutchison looks like a buttoned-down sort of chap. But actually he hates wearing ties. So is he the man to loosen up health policy?
Under Helen Clark and Annette King the health system has edged back closer to the old “public” model. That is an article of faith with them. The state-centred model is at the core of this government’s social policy approach.
In barbaric times gods did barbaric things and humans did barbaric things in fear or honour of them. In times supposedly less barbaric, multitudes were tortured and killed in the name of Papal Rome’s god.
We think our sorts of societies have long since left behind god-driven barbarism and vengefulness. Part of the discomfort many feel with traditional Maori spiritual beliefs is that they speak to them of a dark age of untamed gods. Reason and science were supposed to have banished such mythologies.
Tony Blair’s trumpet, Alistair Campbell, made two predictions to an invited audience on Thursday: the Lions would win and so would Helen Clark. Clark will now hope sport and politics don’t mix.
Except, of course, in southern Africa. Labour ministers are at an old game: condemning — stopping when they can — sport with countries whose regimes they abhor. Norman Kirk set the precedent in 1973 when he stopped the racist Springboks from visiting.
Which of these phrases makes more sense to you: “making meaning” or “learn to read and write”?
Both are to do with educating children. One, says National education spokesman Bill English, is a Ministry of Education concoction to guide reformulation of the school curriculum. The other is English’s version. No prizes for assigning authorship.
Here are two ways to make a speech to a party conference: by creating an inflexion-free zone; or as Pollyanna.
The first was Don Brash keynoting at the National party’s conference on Sunday. The second was Wellington mayor Kerry Prendergast opening it on Saturday.
Brash’s speech read strongly on paper: punchy lines; repetition to drive home telling points, sharp policy contrasts with Labour and Helen Clark.
Graham Kelly has done his bit to dent the credibility of Helen Clark’s government. So has Pete Hodgson, blaming officials. Who’s next in the batting order?
The National party could hardly have a better platform for its pre-election conference this weekend. It really is now in the power game — albeit in harness with Winston Peters.
Tomorrow farmers around the country will tie orange ribbons on their front gates — if they heed Federated Farmers’ call to action. This is in protest at proposed public access to waterways.
Fish and Game says the proposal, developed by John Acland, a South Island high-country grandee farmer, are moderate. The Fed says they trample property rights.
What do you do when the house price boom runs out of puff, you’re up to your eyeballs in debt and you want to keep up the pace of life you’ve got used to? Pray — or vote — for a tax cut.
That is the hole once-happy consumers have dug for Michael Cullen for the election. And he stumbled into it on Budget day.
Yesterday was the Queen’s official birthday. It comes at an apposite time as the Prime Minister ponders when to call the election — as if it were her election and not yours.
Her pondering presumes a regal power, a lingering vestige of an era when sovereignty resided not in the people but in the monarch. When Helen Clark announces the election day she will be acting as if the sovereign, exercising the royal prerogative. Is this right in 2005?