The middle class is a lie.
Every election, we are told, is decided by "middle New Zealand". And depending on your outlet, this either means those who consider themself 'middle class', or the...
2025-03-04 00:15:15 +0000 UTC View PostSo every summer, all the political nerds have nothing to nerd about, so they nudge each other and say that 'BBQ season is in full swing'. This is a suggestion that political parties will be off hav...
2025-01-13 03:37:39 +0000 UTC View PostThat US election was a shocker eh? All the vibes, all the mood, all the media, it all pointed to a Harris win. Some of the polling did too, but it really gave the Dems a Romney-2012 e...
2024-11-11 00:10:25 +0000 UTC View PostThere's an article i...
2024-10-07 00:43:09 +0000 UTC View PostBit of a different angle today. If you follow me on Twitter, you'll know that periodically, I like to dip my toes into hot-music takes.
Probably my most infamous one was my comment that "
Whenever an event of political significance occurs, pundits spring forth. They are there, afterall, to help us make sense of what just happened. Or rather we are there to help you make sense. Becau...
2024-07-15 08:07:41 +0000 UTC View PostSo. It's been a while, eh?
I've been involved in some super intense and heavy work for the last 5 1/2 months, which has pretty much eaten up all my time. I am genuinely sorry and shou...
2024-07-09 00:37:34 +0000 UTC View PostI find it really sad. Golriz is a friend of mine so this one is personal too. What she is accused of doing is definitely bad, and it is definitely not behaviour we expect from MPs.
I don't w...
This has taken a while. I have wanted to say something on the Israel/Palestine situation since October 7, but I have been afraid, and unclear of my own feelings.
For context, I'm Jewish. Ins...
This piece has been written by my colleague and dear friend, Tasmin Prichard. It's pretty good. If you like it, I might invite them to write other pieces. If you don't, I still might beca...
2023-10-13 00:22:49 +0000 UTC View PostTV3 hyping its poll as a game changer suggests it will show National is going to need NZF and ACT to govern, which will be a shit show. But also, is NZF really going to support repealing of the for...
2023-09-25 04:25:10 +0000 UTC View Post
edit: I AM A DUMB DUMB. I READ TAX PLAN AS FISCAL PLAN.
That said, they haven't released the modeling behind the tax plan either. So it sorta stands.
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A while back, Natio...
Last night we all lost. It wasn't even a debate. It was two men who seem to think the same just answering questions. If you're going to have a debate then do what Lange and Muldoon did and have the...
2023-09-19 23:02:30 +0000 UTC View PostEvery time National says anything. Anything. A torrent of experts come rushing out of the woodwork to discredit it. It's not even Labour or the Greens that are doing the attacking. It's actual expe...
2023-09-14 02:28:13 +0000 UTC View PostBy nearly any metric, National had a shocking Sunday. And given Luxo’s predilection for all things fundy, this was possibly especially upsetting. Day of faith indeed.
It started with Luxo o...
2023-09-10 21:43:39 +0000 UTC View PostThe last week was National's worst week in a very long time. And today brings more news that add insult to injury.
Apparently the party made the strategic decision to launch its tax policy ea...
2023-09-03 23:05:51 +0000 UTC View Post
Yesterday National was cock-a-hoop. And you might think that was because of the succession of scandals ...
2023-07-27 21:28:18 +0000 UTC View Post
If you're someone who votes Labour or National, you must be a sad panda.
My political awakening happened at the 1993 election when I was 9 years old. I distinctly remember Richard Prebble los...
2023-07-02 21:45:27 +0000 UTC View PostI was thinking about writing this as my column for The Post. But decided to keep it to Patreon since the audience here is much smaller, and I'm worried that anything I write about ...
2023-05-07 22:40:57 +0000 UTC View Post
With the launch of The Post, they got a bunch of new columnists.
I was invited to be one. So I'm writing once a month for them.
Glad to have made the front page while avoiding the wor...
In among all the weird news of the last few weeks was a wee announcement from National that didn't garner much coverage.
Christopher Luxon announced that he would make getting a Free Trade De...
2023-04-25 22:16:40 +0000 UTC View Post
Kieran McAnulty was given a hospital pass to end all hospital passes. After the Government had passed Three Waters, it still wanted it revamped because everyone hated it and National was successful...
2023-04-16 21:22:15 +0000 UTC View PostRemember 2014? It was an eternity ago. But National had that ad with the rowers. It's lasting legacy would be that it used the Eminem-soundalike that saw National sued.
But the ad's message w...
2023-04-10 21:19:52 +0000 UTC View Post
Chippy coming out and continuing to butcher Labour's policy programme isn't a surprise, but gosh it's cynical politics.
Everyone knew that National was planning a small-target strategy when i...
2023-03-13 20:34:38 +0000 UTC View PostGod I wish we stopped doing state of the nation speeches. They're no such thing and it's such a lame Americanism.
Anyway, Luxo had his moment in the sun (after postponing it twice due to shi...
I'm going to be smug. In the last 6 or so months, nearly every "pundit" has said that National was going to canter to victory at the election. I have been one of two hold-outs that I know of. Just ...
2023-02-13 20:16:40 +0000 UTC View PostWell well well. Yesterday morning when both 1News and Newshub announced they were doing polls concurrently, I tweeted:
2023-01-30 20:57:20 +0000 UTC
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An earlier version of this said JA had handed the election to Labour. I'm a chump. I meant National.
So I've been saying that I thought Labour would stumble over the line this year...
Ugh. I cannot believe we're back in an election year. Since Covid time has collapsed in on itself, so that everything is both flying past me, and moving incredibly slowly.
All the wise financ...
2023-01-05 01:13:16 +0000 UTC View Post