Say Good Night, Ian..........

You read it here first. The Tory caucus has sent the hapless Ian Duncan Smith to the bench. The Guardian has the account.

And IDS goes the way of Bill English

It seems that the global centre right (AKA The Vast Right Wing Conspiracy) may finally be getting on top of its game. The smart money says that the British Tories will shortly show Ian Duncan Smith the door. This editorial in the Telegraph is an early epitaph if ever I saw one. These are early days, but some better generalship could make a real difference in the culture wars.

Here's a quote from the Telegraph that could just as easily apply to National:

"The need to mount an effective opposition to a government vulnerable on a host of fronts before the next election requires a leader with the unqualified backing of his party. The divisive and anonymous back-bench whining that has so characterised the past few weeks must not be allowed to hamper the Tory policy platform any longer."

Go to it.

"The Government is slowly destroying New Zealand....."

The above from Don Brash who finally has knocked the hapless Bill English off his bar stool. He's correct, of course, but a few specific examples would have been nice.

How about the deliberate and systematic alienation of New Zealanders from all authority other than Nanny State? The family, the schools, the Crown, the churches, the workplace...in Labour's view all mere impediments to self esteem. How about the expansion of no-questions-asked benefit payments, in reality just thinly disguised vote-buying as Labour seeks to create an underclass constituency permanently dependent on the largess of the state? How about the abandonment of 4,000 years of Western civilisation in favour of a dying Stone Age culture? How about the deliberate dilution of New Zealand's national character into some kind of fuzzy multi-cultural milieu?

Say Goodnight, Bill

As much as I'd like to sit down with Bill English over a pint or three, or have him as a next door neighbor, he was a miserable failure as party leader and should have stepped down after leading the Nats down to defeat in the last election.

If a leader is not to be judged by the size of his party's caucus, or at least by its standing in the polls, then how should he be judged? It's not at all certain that Don Brash will do any better, but Mr. English failed to present any kind of plausible strategy for returning his party to power.

On the face of it, Labour should be an easy target. The breathtaking arrogance, the profound and obvious contempt for democracy, the transparent attempts to divide the nation by race and class, Margaret Wilson's judicial coup d'etat, Michael Cullen's rapacious tax policies, and the cheap anti-Americanism all fly in the face of New Zealanders' common sense and decency. Why has National failed to take the verbal fight to Helen Clark every day, why has it allowed the hypocrisy of the left to go unanswered?

A leader must be found on the center-right who can stop the Red Green Axis in it's anti-democratic tracks. Before it's too late.....

Helen's Chinese Pal

Read the Herald's account of Labour kissing Chinese President Hu Jintao's arse over Taiwan and Tibet. Bet the PM didn't raise any human rights issues at all. When the "President" of a vicious totalitarian state tells the New Zealand government how to conduct its foreign policy, the entire Cabinet sits up and begs for more; when the President of the United States modestly suggests that a way might be found around differences between the US and New Zealand, the Red-Green axis gets all breathless about US "bullying".

A free trade agreement with China? On the economic issues alone, the idea is monumental in its idiocy. There isn't a single important NZ manufactured product that can't be made or counterfeited in China at half the price. Does anyone really think Chinese consumers have the disposable income to pay for clean, green New Zealand agricultural products? Add to that the bleeding obvious fact that a free trade agreement with a country that doesn't have a convertible currency is a contradiction in terms and one wonders where the stupidity ends. Where are the labour unions on this? Not a word, even though a free trade agreement with China would shut every factory in this country.

The End Logic of the Left

The problem with socialism, other than its utter and unrelenting failure to deliver anywhere or at any time, either freedom or prosperity, is that followed to its logical conclusion it leads inexorably to the kind of horrors described in the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea's report on Kim Jong-il's gulag. Read this and weep, literally.

Don't Know Much Geography........

"We won't be becoming the 53rd state."--Green MP Rod Donald

Today's Herald has the left spin on US Ambassador Swindells' attempt to exercise free speech at Victoria University. The Ambassador, while going about his lawful business, was shouted down by a mob of green shirt thought police. Green MP Rod Donald notes helpfully that New Zealand will not be succumbing to "US bullying". Hmmm, been shouted down in the States lately, Rod?

Arnold

The mystery of this is not how Davis was given the bum's rush or how Arnold managed to become governor-elect. All that is explainable by reference to conventional American politics and the money that fuels it. What is beyond me is how Californians, sophisticated suntanned denizens of the Left Coast --at least the ones who aren't living in their car--tolerated for so long a Democratic machine that could elevate Gray Davis to the governorship. This ill tempered, foul mouthed, deeply corrupt incompetent became governor just by hanging around long enough and by being marginally less a loser than Cruz Bustamante or Willie Brown.

Taking It Home

I was wondering when this would happen. The Israelis have finally gotten around to delivering the package to the right address. Boy Assad must be wondering why that damned Arab street still won't rise.