The media are still full on holding Bill English to account over the Todd Barclay recordings. He managed to deliver headlines on both Saturday and Sunday, and he has kept things going this morning.
RNZ: VIDEO: PM ‘gave no advice’ on Barclay recordings
Prime Minister Bill English does not know whether the recording at the centre of the Todd Barclay controversy still exists, he tells Morning Report’s Susie Ferguson.
Your NZ 
duperez
/ 26th June 2017English can keep feeding the media. English can keep floundering. English can keep obfuscating. English can keep running defence for others in the National Party. English can keep not telling ‘the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.’
And English can keep being Prime Minister after September 23rd.
Gezza
/ 26th June 2017Why?
duperez
/ 26th June 2017If the ‘why’ applies to the first bits: because he can.
If the ‘why’ applies to the second bit: because the only thing that counts is the number of votes.
Gezza
/ 26th June 2017It was the second bit. So you obviously think, as do I, that there’ll be a National-led coalition government after the election?
Which I take it, then, in relation to the first bits – means you think Bill will be able to put the white-lying bit behind him & that the majority of the voting public couldn’t really care less because they understand that he was in a bit of a spot?
That they think – ‘Ok, handled it badly, but hey, so what? The blatant liar got the boot – end of story’, do you think? Or is Bill going to still keep getting skewered by the media & Oppos over the hush settlement payoff from the leader’s fund & the police reopening their investigation into the secret taping of Glenys Dickson’s conversations, which he clearly knew about?
duperez
/ 26th June 2017First paragraph. Skewered by the media? Self skewered. You can’t crap on the floor and moan when people complain about the smell. Or because the smell gets reported to others who aren’t at hand to experience it directly.
Gezza
/ 26th June 2017😳
Righto.
Thanks. 👍
George Black
/ 26th June 2017Seems like he’s using President Trumps tactic of pissing the fake media off.
Much to recommend the lad .
Now.what of the reluctance of the same media to uncover the slavery story
Who What Where When and Why
alloytoo
/ 26th June 2017The Media’s reluctance to investigate Slavegate (and there’s a lot to investigate) seriously undermines our democracy. How can we be expected to take them seriously and afford them the liberties they enjoy if they continue to show unmitigated bias like this.
duperez
/ 26th June 2017Probably in the same way we can take seriously anyone who needs to use “Slavegate.”
Gezza
/ 26th June 2017Who What Where When and Why and How, we were taught.
Alan Wilkinson
/ 26th June 2017The Crimes Act requires recordings to be destroyed when no longer needed for the purpose that justified them.
oldlaker
/ 26th June 2017I think Slavegate has disappeared mostly because Andrew Little said it was wrong and an embarrassment. If English had taken the same tack, there’d be nothing for the media to hound him over. The fact English goes on not answering questions directly, or evasively, means he’s not going to shrug this off until his goose is well and truly cooked. But, yes, he will probably still win the election.
High Flying Duck
/ 26th June 2017Although it appears Little was still lying aplenty and basically trying to plead down the nature of his offending.
English is being hauled up for very fine semantics while Little – as per PG’s excellent take has taken wholesale liberties regarding what happened with the interns.
Zedd
/ 26th June 2017English is just following his predecessor; ignore it, deny it, forgot it, distract from it & if all else fails.. sows seeds of doubt & tell them ‘I know BEST, everytime’ etc.
In the meantime, English’s credibility is sinking….. maybe he should quit while he still can
oldlaker
/ 26th June 2017To his credit, English is not as barefaced a liar as Key. You can actually tell when English is lying (or being evasive). Lying came so naturally to Key it was impossible to tell.
traveller
/ 26th June 2017This meme that Key was a liar is quite ridiculous and it’s patently untrue. Progressives think all the have to do is say something over and it’s true. The people know. The people knew that Key was the most popular PM ever. The real measure – the ballot box.
duperez
/ 26th June 2017Then again there are those who would have believed Mr Key if he had said that GCSB was spelled BGSC. (GCSB means Government Communications Security Bureau not Gigantic Continued Suspension of Belief. The B most definitely doesn’t mean’Bullshit.’) 😊
Zedd
/ 26th June 2017so remind me, why did Key really quit ?
slowly sinking in all his own b-s.. until it was clear, even to the staunch right (who dont want to know).. “BUT you cant fool; all the people ALL the time !”
Alan Wilkinson
/ 26th June 2017Twaddle, Zedd. The Left wallow in their own b.s.
Zedd
/ 26th June 2017“ouch”.. AW 😀
traveller
/ 26th June 2017Why did you quit our jobs Zedd? I’ve quit heaps and all for different reasons, none of them dramatic. Tinfoil hat
Zedd
/ 26th June 2017thats one view.. but methinks that is not really the issue, here ?!
Blazer
/ 26th June 2017weren’t sacked…I hope.Heaps….not inspiring.
oldlaker
/ 26th June 2017Oh, here’s one lie picked randomly. John Key from March 2016: “From time to time, when you get a change of MP, you will get changes to staff, because the style’s a bit different, so I don’t have any other details other than that.” This was after he authorised a payout and he’d talked to English about it.
Pete George
/ 26th June 2017That could be seen as a lie. How different is it to how many politicians talk?
Is it a hanging offence? Or just business as usual?
duperez
/ 26th June 2017It seems it’s business as usual accepting that business has to be as usual as that.
Let’s stop stuffing around differentiating about whether or not there are ‘serious’ lies and ones that are unimportant. Let’s not have the Speaker stopping factual statements about someone lying. Let’s accept that things said are statements and not differentiate about whether they are true of not.
My lot would’ve been much easier if I hadn’t had to spend so much time establishing the truth.Then again the lot of the whole society would’ve been considerably worse if I hadn’t.
Blazer
/ 26th June 2017‘This meme that Key was a liar is quite ridiculous and it’s patently untrue’….never seen a statement on here that was so ridiculous and patently…untrue.
Alan Wilkinson
/ 26th June 2017The truth about lying:
https://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/199705/the-truth-about-lying
An optimist will often be said to lie. A depressive much less. Little seems to show the latter doesn’t apply to politicians.
oldlaker
/ 26th June 2017Since when has the ballot box been the arbiter of truthfulness? Trump? Nixon?
Alan Wilkinson
/ 26th June 2017Since when has the media been a better arbiter of truthfulness than the ballot box?
High Flying Duck
/ 26th June 2017Maybe not truth specifically – but probably trust.
Gezza
/ 26th June 2017Doofuses. Bill & Andy. I looked it up. The plural is doofuses.
Bill – shut up. Just. Shut up! Say you’re sorry & shut up. Thar’s probably what you should have done all along!
Andy – it’s too late. You’re trying to shut up, but now you can’t shut everybody else up!
What a shambles. What total screw-ups. The pair of them. Their media minders should be taken out the back & shot – as a warning to others.
I’ve decided they’re both hopeless. They both really should go. 😡 But who the hell else have they got at this short notice? 😳
High Flying Duck
/ 26th June 2017I’m sure Grant would probably put up passing resistance before reluctantly taking up the reigns if asked…and to be fair, getting him in the top job and putting someone remotely financially literate into the shadow Finance Minister would probably serve them well.
And for the Nat’s it would be a bloodletting in which Judith, Jonathan Coleman and maybe Gerry & Paula fight it out until the party implodes.
Gezza
/ 26th June 2017Nats is easy. Locked room, one knife.
High Flying Duck
/ 26th June 2017Judith it is then…
Gezza
/ 26th June 2017Yup. Two of them will move too slowly & the doctor will still be diagnosing the situation.
Blazer
/ 26th June 2017Coleman was a patsy candidate…Collins,Bennett and Bridges are the contenders.
Gezza
/ 26th June 2017You’ve mentioned this before. If Bill English is regarded as a bit wooden, Bridges comes across to me as a blimmin hardwood wharf pile. Personality of a robot. Computer-voice.
What makes you think Bridges would be a contender?
Blazer
/ 26th June 2017take a look at the campaign video.Has more cabinet responsibility now…and models himself on….Key.
Gezza
/ 26th June 2017He appears once in a threesome in a tiny short segment, but it’s interesting that he appears at all, I guess. The man has the on-screen personality of a talking parking meter, Blazer. I don’t think he can change that. And I don’t think people will want that in a PM.
MaureenW
/ 26th June 2017What difference do you think changing leaders will make?
Gezza
/ 26th June 2017None in reality because it’s not going to happen before the election. Was just really commenting on the leaders’ clumsiness with their current public bullshitting troubles.
Hypothetically, if there was another year to go and a leadership change was to happen:
National – depends who’s leader but I would expect at least some changes, maybe harder-edge policies in the social welfare area. It will depend on the personality of the new leader how much if any change would be made to the present, steady as she goes, evidence-based funding, incremental change course that has been working so well & that I think Bill English is probably the chief architect of.
Labour – I have no clue. Their selection process is so arcane & covoluted it’s hard to know who would tumble out the other end as the holder of the poison chalice, or where they would end up taking the Party. It sure wouldn’t be the wannabe child-minder who’s their current deputy.