Oh, I think Winston will do whatever it takes to regain those "baubles of office", fungus old pudding. Whatever it takes. . .
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Fungus
How wrong you are. If Winston demanded the nationalization of the means of production, distribution and exchange, and opening an embassy in Pyongyang they would agree. As long as it meant retaining the treasury benches.
They have long ago given up any pretense about being a party of conviction or principle. That train left the station many years ago. Keith Holyoake and Jack Marshall would be appalled
Surely Helen Clark has already set the record for how much to bid for Winston's support. Anymore than she bid and obviously NZ First would be the stronger, senior partner!
Does National have a 'suitable' leader? Good enough to be our PM? Some people are setting a low standard, if so.
Maybe more arty people will have a go at political satire leading up to the 2017 election, the precedent has been set.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/politics/n...ectid=11732723
Winston was a frustrated potential leader of the National Party. By instinct his first choice will be to negotiate with National but the price will be very, very high. Complicating this is his strong personal dislike of John Key. Internally there will be friction with some MPs accommodating their Cabinet aspirations. If the price of National going into coalition with NZ First is a significant allocation of cabinet posts to NZ First then this could boil over. In effect this would set back National MPs political careers by many years. Outside Parliament most SOE boards are already stacked with former National Party nomenclature. NZ First will, quite rightly, demand a share of those positions as well for its supporters. None of these are happy scenarios for John Key. If they do a deal the unhappy coalition of Jenny Shipley and Winston in 1996-1999 will seem quite functional by comparison. No doubt John Key will be keeping a closer eye on the polls than usual. Its quite possible he will bail out as leader in April.
And I haven't even mentioned Judith Collins.
National is down a couple of women ministers, so this does leave room for Judith Collins and Paula "Hyperbowl" Bennett. Full of class, those two.
Paula isn't saying much about the heaps of State Houses now vacant, when it's obvious many could be quickly returned to service. But do National want to do that? No way. It's all about punishing the poor, and jacking up rentals and valuations elsewhere.
http://www.newshub.co.nz/politics/tw...mes-2016102914
Our very efficient but overworked courier driver left his subcontractor operation the other day, his new standard job is working for one of these meth-testing firms. The firm was in expansion mode. Little wonder.