The British media are telling you they want you to vote Conservative

George Hodan Those who remember Visual Arts Trends, a publication created and edited by my friend Julia Dudnik-Stern in the late 1990s and early 2000s, might recall that I didn’t have kind words about the Rt Hon Tony Blair and his government. In those pre-Iraq war days, one reader was so upset they wrote to […]

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All I really know is who I won’t vote for

One thing I love about New Zealand is that we’re not mired in an election cycle years before the event. We’re three weeks or so out from our General Election, and only now am I feeling things are heating up.    It’s not that we haven’t had drama. Weeks ago, Metiria Turei was co-leader of […]

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The political caricatures of old have taken human form, but they’re still nothing like us

That’s another British General Election done and dusted. I haven’t followed one this closely since the 1997 campaign, where I was backing John Major.    Shock, horror! Hang on, Jack. Haven’t the media all said you are a leftie? Didn’t you stand for a left-wing party?    Therein lies a fallacy about left- and right […]

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Brand Kim Dotcom: what has changed?

Equal access: an audio recording of this blog post can be found here. It’s disturbing to see so many Kim Dotcom jokes post-General Election, with plenty of Kiwis happy to ridicule the bloke because of Internet Mana’s terrible showing in the polls, and the loss of Hone Harawira’s seat.    Yet not too long ago, […]

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About Labour, I was nearly on the money in May

In May, I wrote (in the wake of the Oravida scandal): The problem with all of this is: where’s Labour, in the midst of the greatest gift an opposition has been given for years?    One friend of a friend noted that maybe Labour shouldn’t be attacking, because we Kiwis don’t like whingers. It is […]

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When the parties uploaded their opening statements to their YouTube accounts

This is when each political party uploaded their opening broadcasts to their official YouTube accounts. Ideally, they should have gone up on Saturday night, when they were broadcast on television, as that was when those of us online were hunting for them. (TVNZ did not have these up on demand on the night, either, but […]

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‘Planet Key’ is good old-fashioned Kiwi satire

Fed up with the Electoral Commission barring Darren Watson from expressing his valid view with his satirical song ‘Planet Key’, I made a spoken-word version of it for my Tumblr a week ago, with copyright clearance over the lyrics. I wrote: Since the Electoral Commission has imposed a ban on Darren Watson’s ‘Planet Key’—in fact, […]

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I thought political division got you nowhere in New Zealand

A week and a half ago, I appeared on Back Benches to talk about Winston Peters MP’s “two Wongs” joke, and confined my comments to that.    My response, ‘There are still people who enjoy watching Rolf Harris, just as there are still people out there who enjoy listening to Winston Peters.’ And, ‘We have […]

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The 2014 General Election: the impressions the parties have left, so far

A Kiwi friend, based in Australia, and I were discussing the General Election yesterday on the phone.    First, I told her, you wouldn’t know one was on. It’s like Christmas when the global financial crisis hit: people weren’t in the mood.    Secondly, minor parties like Internet Mana are probably doing better than the […]

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This government’s comedy of errors lately—and few to capitalize on them

Polity has gone through the MFAT OIA documents relating to Judith Collins’s visit to China, where she met with Oravida thrice.    I’ve been reading them but out of order (the second bunch only) and their summary of what I have read gels with my take on things.    These matters have been covered better […]

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