Forgone Conclusion
Apparently that nice Mr. Key is less than enthusiastic about the economic recommendations for his former rival Don Brash.
Gasp! Shock. Horror.
Not.
Without even looking at Brash’s recommendations I could have told you that they will be rejected out of hand by Key. The entire taskforce was never designed to produce any viable suggestion. Regardless of the merits of Brash’s recommendations, there was never a chance that Key would follow them. No amount of howls of disappointment from the guys at No Minister, Kiwiblog and Roarprawn will change this. The cries of “Hidden Agenda” and “Neocons” from the Left wing blogs will meet with inevitable disappointment as Key stays comfortably centrist.
This was inevitable.
Think about it. Why would Key set up a taskforce headed by someone whose ideas on productivity are all extremely well known and likely to be an anathema to a centrist? I suspect it was precisely because he could count on Brash to produce such a document. Dr. Brash serves two purposes. Firstly, he fulfills National’s obligations to their partner ACT. ACT can hardly complain about the taskforce being loaded with people inimical to ACT’s agenda. Caygill was one of Douglas’ main supporters and Brash was often referred to as an extra ACT MP.
Secondly, Dr. Brash becomes the bogey man – the scary face of National without that nice Mr. Key. John Key can now gently lift some useful parts out of the taskforce report and implement them. Without Brash, he would have copped much flack from Labour (and probably still will) with words about hidden agendas and privatisation and the like. Key can now point to Bogey Brash and say that that is what a radical National agenda looks like. Which you have to admit is pretty impressive politics (if not particularly great economics).
I had not realised you could assassinate someone twice…
Related posts:
- The Great Disconnection Yesterday, I blogged about how I thought left-wing remarks about...
- Stuck in the Middle With You Am I the only one that thinks that John Key...
- Political Stability Turns out that I was right about the Left-wing blogs...
- We’ll Get Back to You The phrase “We’ll get back to you” is commonly used...
- The Right Thing It is rare for the Greens and Act to see...
Dec 1 09 9:01 am
And Dr. Brash was probably ‘persuaded’ to drop his complaint to the police over the stolen emails by being told he could ‘contribute’ to the future of NZ.
Sorry Dr. Brash you may be honest and have integrity but those you are dealing with are/do not.
Dec 1 09 9:36 am
Agree with your analysis of the politics, but I think it is important for NZers to realise that John Key is left of centre, not centrist. We have gone way to the left in terms of government involvement in the lives of its citizens and the negative inmpact government has on our economic welfare; the fact that John Key and National are doing nothing about changing this, while reducing complaints from the MSM, puts them firmly them in the left wing camp themselves.
I think we need to get the labels right. Calling John Key centrist suggests he is right not to undertake anything \radical\ such as empowering citizens to make decisions on how they spend more of their own money. And thus continues our decline.
Dec 1 09 1:35 pm
I make a couple of comments on the recommendations here. Basically there is nothing particularly new or radical in any of the ideas. But there are a number of good ideas in contained within the recommendations. A few things I don’t get, but I think the big thing is, as you say, the recommendations will be rejected out of hand by Key. He never really had any intention of doing anything with the report.
Paul Walker´s last blog ..2025 Taskforce (updated)
Dec 1 09 2:31 pm
Agreed, Key is far more Left than right, this is now so obvious. I won’t be fooled again, and would rather vote for a right winger in Labour than the Leftist, socialist Key.
Dec 1 09 10:48 pm
Brash’s comeback was good. He said he could have just copied and pasted National party manifesto policy but he wanted to find some constructive policies that would actually work.
Madeleine´s last blog ..Climate Change Statistics Humour