‘BLiP’ is well known at The Standard for his list of alleged lies told by John Key. A lot of the items on that list were quite questionable, but that didn’t stop The Standard re-displaying the list from time to time.
BLiP was not required to provide evidence in support of his claims – anyone attacking Key and National in particular and also other parties at The Standard can say virtually what they like without being moderated.
Some of the moderators (BLiP is one) are much more touchy about any criticism of Labour in particular, and also criticism of their allies, the Greens.
In a recent exchange:
Several claims about Winston Peters that were left unsubstantiated, as is normal.
I responded:
But L/G ends on election day. It is a campaign arrangement with an end date before coalition wrangling begins.
Labour obviously want to keep their coalition options open. Particularly if NZ First gets more votes than Greens (a distinct possibility, if voters dump National they are more likely to vote NZF than Greens).
The MSM can’t clarify what Peters will do before the election. I doubt Labour will clarify what their strategy is either.
Remember that Labour has shat all over the Maori and Mana Parties and has ruled out dealing with them. That leaves either NZF or Greens.
Unless Labour+Greens can for a majority on their own the Greens are in a weak bargaining position.
[BLiP: Provide evidence of Labour having “ruled out dealing with [maori and Mana parties]” in your very next comment or do not post here again for one week. Up to you.]
Touchy, and a typical double standard.
I responded three times with different justifications for my claim. BLiP has not even acknowledged my replies, instead leaving the impression that I didn’t comply with his demand. I presume that is deliberate.
Andrew Little and Labour have made it clear they don’t want to deal with the Maori and Mana parties. They have made it clear they want to deal to them – to wipe them out of Parliament.
NZ Herald reported on Little at Ratana in January:
Labour leader Andrew Little has further distanced Labour from the Maori Party while also dismissing Hone Harawira’s Mana Movement as “irrelevant”.
Speaking at Ratana Pa near Wanganui this morning, Little all but ruled out forming a post-election coalition with the Maori Party or Mana Movement, which have agreed to work together to win back Maori seats.
Little said Labour would work with parties which had “a practical set of ideas of what can be done” for Maori.
The Maori Party had been “shackled” to the National Party for nine years, and National had failed Maori, he said.
“Why the Mana Party would want to now shackle itself to the Maori Party is entirely up to them, but they are totally irrelevant.”
Last month also from the Herald:
But it takes two to tango and Labour leader Andrew Little was putting on dancing shoes with sprigs.
He was not interested in the tango.
He was interested in the danse macabre; he wanted to kill off the Maori Party completely.
Little went into a lengthy, full-blown tirade against the Maori Party on RNZ.
He downgraded the Maori Party as a future support partner from “far from the first cab on the rank” to “simply not in my contemplation.”
He then declared the Maori Party was “not kaupapa Maori” [based on Maori values].
From Stuff in early March: Little signals Greens will be ‘first cab off the rank’ in post-election talks
“There are two other Opposition parties, apart from Labour, that we work closely together with and I contemplate both being candidates for partners or support partners to form a government.”
In an interview on The Nation earlier this month:
But do voters deserve to know that? You know, he’s a potential coalition partner. Would you countenance him as Deputy Prime Minister?Little: Voters want to know what are the parties that we have good relations with and who are likely to be part of a coalition arrange – a set of coalition arrangements. We have a good relationship with the Green Party. We have a good relationship with New Zealand First.
Okay, so you’re not ruling it out. You’re not ruling it out.
Little: If I have the privilege after the 23rd of September to form a Government, my first phone call will go to the Greens and New Zealand First will be not far behind.
Noticeably excluded are the Maori and Mana parties from Little’s contemplations and ruling in.
Why is BLiP so intent on suppressing an impression that Little has repeatedly made obvious?
I note that BLiP made no attempt to argue against Labour’s impression, he just banned and censored what he didn’t want posted.
Posted under Little’s name on the Labour Party website:
“If Māori want to see progress on the problems they face in housing, health and education, then they should back their Labour candidate.
“We have a plan to turn the position of Māori around and we’ll be running a campaign to show how Māori will be better served by a strong Labour Māori voice around the Cabinet table.”
He seems to think that Labour alone can properly serve Māori.
I’ll leave this post with this impression from Andrew Little: Maori King is ‘abusing his office’ by endorsing Rahui Papa for the Maori Party:
As to the plan to restore a relationship between Labour and Kingitanga, the Maori King movement?
“We’re going to campaign and win and we’ll beat the Maori Party,” he said.
“The problem with the King is that for whatever reason he’s allowed himself to become a mouthpiece for a single political party in a way that no previous head of Kingitanga has done.
That’s rather ironic given that Little is the mouthpiece for a single political party that wants to be the sole representative of Maori voters.
weka
Peters has always said that he’d deal with the largest party first. This does suggest problems, as L/G are not one party (plus his antipathy towards the Greens is well-known and longstanding). I hope I’m wrong, but I do think we should be concerned about the idea of Winston choosing who forms the next government.