Our post earlier on today about Labour's candidate in Tauranga has outraged one blogger who clearly has no knowledge of Tauranga politics or the person concerned and who thinks that we have applied a double standard (remember the fruits of that private printing press in Wellington in the late 70s - Rooting pig shot in Ngaio, PM Safe etc). Indeed it seems there are some poor deluded types who see Pankhurst as a "strong candidate".
We apologise Jafapete if we offended you with our post. You were not the target - the Herald was. They ran a stupid story on Labour and Tauranga this morning. If you had read an earlier post it might have made more sense (by the way Hunt is long back and has been replaced with MFAT Dep Sec Derek Leask, but as we have also reported several times Leask could easily be replaced should a home need to be found for Winston. The Nats are thinking that Washington might also be an option - lets see the body chemistry between Winston and Condi in July, and what happens to Condi post-election).
By the way, the photo is a pretty good one of Ann. You should see her after having had too much to drink. In that regard we think Whaleoil had a post of relevance. We thought that Whaleoil was a bit unkind, but draw attention to it so that people can compare styles and standards - as these seem to be the issue. Maybe we are just to subtle sometimes.
Jan 6, 2008
Have Helen And Winston Done A Dirty Deal Over Tauranga?
One of the developments we missed here at The Hive in the run up to Christmas was the confirmation by Labour that Anne Pankhurst has been selected as its candidate to run for Tauranga. The decision seems to have been made around 17 or 18 December.Pankhurst is a defeated council candidate in the October local body elections. She was an incumbent Councillor we believe, so the loss is more notable.We had heard in November that Pankhurst was going to be the candidate - apparently this was arranged personally by Helen and the 9th floor team. There were no other candidates putting their names forward for selection. But we also heard that Pankhurst was getting the wobbles and that she might be putting out feelers to National to see whether they might be interested in her, should Clarkson decide not to stand. Clearly National were not interested.The significance of this decision is that there is a lot of baggage associated with this candidate. One example appeared straight after her nomination. She appears to have made some false claims in the CV used when running for Council. See the attached from the Bay of Plenty Times. She does not have a hope of winning this seat.Labour clearly doesn't feel comfortable with not running a candidate in Tauranga, but clearly doesn't want to be seen to be competing too seriously with Winston in this seat. People might recall that pretty serious candidates have been run in the past by Labour against him. Why not this time? Because with the loss of any prospect of support from Maori, and with the Greens in real trouble, Labour needs Winston and a few NZ First people back into the next Parliament to give them any hope of holding onto power.But there is a risk here, for both Winston and Labour. We wrote this analysis a month ago. It still holds true:Facing the prospect of political oblivion, and with no savings to speak of, NZ First Leader, Foreign Minister, and Government lapdog Winston Peters is reported to have decided to run again for his old seat of Tauranga. Winston lost this seat to National's Bob Clarkson at the last election. Things will be difficult this time around too Winston, particularly if Labour tries to make it easy for you by not standing, or by standing a plonker. This will make it clear to all that a vote for Winston or NZ First is in fact a vote for Labour. Moreover, with most of your original constituency pushing up daisies, or thoroughly pissed off that you misled them over the Super Gold Card, what are you going to run on?
Posted by Queen Bee at 2:51 PM
Labels: National Politics
