2016: Annus Horribilis

The Last Laugh: As Plato predicted, more than 2,000 years ago, a democratic citizenry that loses faith in its own efficacy will voluntarily entrust its destiny to the first demagogue who learns to speak its language of despair. In 2016, this annus horribilis, those demagogues’ names were Nigel Farage and Donald Trump.

 

THIS WAS THE YEAR that democracy failed. The year that, in the English-speaking world at least, citizens stopped being citizens. Exactly what we are turning into is not yet clear, but it’s unlikely to be anything good.

 

This is a harsh judgement, and hopefully, in our own case, a premature one. In the case of the United Kingdom and the United States, however, it is more than fair. The Brexit decision and the Trump triumph, on their own, constitute more than sufficient evidence to warrant the indictment of both the British and the American electorates.

 

If it is to work at all, democracy requires a citizenry who both understand and value the principles of representative government. An interested citizenry, who take care to inform themselves about what is happening in their country – and why. A well-educated citizenry, who seek after the truth and cannot be swayed by the cheap falsehoods and even cheaper promises of demagogues and charlatans. A proud citizenry, who prize the scientific, technological and cultural achievements of their nation’s history. A decent citizenry, unwilling, on principle, to use the franchise as a means of inflicting shame and injury upon individuals, groups and organisations which a fraction (maybe even a majority) of them distrust.

 

In all the long history of the world there has never existed a body of citizens which fitted perfectly this idealised description of a democratic people. Prior to 2016, however, there have always enough of them in the United Kingdom and the United States to ensure that the moral trajectories of those nation states traced an upward course.

 

The British people overcame the power of their kings and wrenched a welfare state from the pockets of a reluctant capitalist ruling class. The American people, likewise, made good the promises of their Declaration of Independence and abolished slavery – even if they had to fight a bloody civil war to do it. In the 1930s, rejecting the extremes of left and right, they embraced Roosevelt’s “New Deal” and, in the 1960s and 70s, as the world’s most affluent society, they gave birth to the “New Social Movements” of racial and sexual emancipation and environmentalism.

 

While in both the United Kingdom and the United States the popular struggle for human rights and social progress has endured many difficulties and delays, it has never been decisively reversed. As Dr Martin Luther King reassured all those still fighting for their share of the American dream: “The arc of the moral universe is long but it bends towards justice.”

 

Or, so we thought, until this horrible year.

 

Who is to blame?

 

The very question is emblematic of our malaise. So much of what went wrong in 2016 is attributable to an ever-increasing number of citizens’ furious quest for the causes of their besetting nightmares. Immigrants, Muslims, the undeserving poor, liberals, conservatives, Clinton, Trump: the dread creatures of our unease wear many faces. All of them, however, have one thing in common – they are to blame.

 

Progressives like to blame globalisation and its ideological bodyguard, neoliberalism. They point to devastated regions and hollowed-out communities filled with men and women psychologically paralysed by their diminished status and security. People mired in a crippling nostalgia for their vanished life-worlds. People frightened of the future. People hungry for some kind – any kind – of social and political revenge.

 

We are losing faith in collective efficacy. For the second time in a century, the future threatens. The first was after World War I, when the progressive belief that dramatic economic and technological change could be turned to the advantage of ordinary people, by ordinary people, faltered – and with it their faith in democracy. In Europe this disillusionment fuelled the rise of dictators. In the English-speaking world, however, ordinary people’s faith in democracy endured, and the totalitarian dictatorships were defeated.

 

In the twenty-first century, totalitarianism wears a different mask. Economic and technological change are no longer means to collective emancipatory ends, they’ve become ends in themselves. Winners find a place in the free-market system; losers get spat out. Thirty years of this inhuman political calculus have convinced voters that while they might change parties, they cannot change policies.

 

Except they can. Not in the progressive spirit of their ancestors, but in the spirit of an ignorant, illiberal and recklessly vengeful nihilism. If the “Establishment” urges them to remain in the European Union, then they’ll vote for Brexit. If Donald Trump represents the antithesis of everything the Establishment’s candidate, Hillary Clinton, stands for, then: “Let’s make America great again!”

 

As Plato predicted, more than 2,000 years ago, a democratic citizenry that loses faith in its own efficacy will voluntarily entrust its destiny to the first demagogue who learns to speak its language of despair. In 2016, this annus horribilis, those demagogues’ names were Nigel Farage and Donald Trump.

 

This essay was originally published in The Press of Tuesday, 27 December 2016.

Christmas 2016

 

 

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all the readers and followers of Bowalley Road.

 

 

Video courtesy of YouTube

 

This posting is exclusive to Bowalley Road.

The Eavesdropper.

‘Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord.’

 

HE WAS AN EASY CHILD to overlook. Small and wiry, whose rags were the colour of the dust he slept in. His long dead parents had named him Elias, but most of the village just called him Runt. Rabbi Jacob allowed the orphan boy to sleep in a corner of his storehouse and would feed him when others wouldn’t. Which wasn’t often, because Runt was forever making himself useful: running errands, carrying messages, hauling olives to the village press. Occasionally, people tossed him a coin, but mostly Runt worked for food. Rabbi Jacob’s generosity was seldom tested.

 

Which was more than could be said for his patience. Runt was forever asking the old teacher questions. Shrewd questions. Questions inspired by the lad’s uncanny knack for seeing and hearing things that his neighbours, had they but known, would certainly wish he hadn’t seen and heard. Runt kept a detailed mental ledger of the villagers’ good and evil words and deeds. “What that boy knows,” the Rabbi would mutter to himself, “will get him into trouble one of these days – and me, too, I shouldn’t wonder!”

 

But it was only after the village carpenter and his young wife had returned from their travels with a brand new baby boy, that the trouble Jacob had for so long anticipated came calling.

 

“Rabbi, do you think that the carpenter’s wife’s child is truly the carpenter’s son?”

 

“How many times must I warn you, Elias, about asking such questions? What possible reason would you have to doubt that Mary’s baby is Joseph’s son?”

 

The boy poked the fire, sending sparks and shadows flying.

 

“Are you cold, boy? You’re shivering.”

 

“What I saw and heard that night still makes me shiver, Rabbi.”

 

“Tell me, then, Elias – what did you see and hear?”

 

Runt pulled his knees up under his chin and stared into the flames.

 

“Mary was in her father’s garden. Nothing unusual in that, of course, and I was just about to turn the corner when I noticed that she wasn’t alone. A man, clad all in white, was seated on the garden wall. I say white, but to tell the truth I’m not sure what colour it was. All I know is that there was a glimmering in that garden like moonlight, except that the moon had not yet risen. I ducked down, and hidden by the wall’s shadow, crept closer.”

 

“And what did you hear, Elias?”

 

“Words I’ll never forget, Rabbi. The man in white spoke quietly, but I heard every syllable. ‘Do not be afraid, Mary,’ he said, “for you have found favour with God. Very soon you will conceive and bear a son, and you shall call him Jesus. He will be the son of the Most High and of his kingdom there will be no end.’ Mary was taken aback, as you might imagine. ‘But Joseph and I have not yet wed”, she said, ‘and until we do there will be no babies – of that you may be sure!’ The man in white smiled. ‘The Holy Spirit will be with you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. A child there will be. A holy child. And he will be the Son of God.’ And as he spoke these words the light about him began to grow brighter. Mary fell to her knees.”

 

“What did she say, boy, what did she say! Jacob’s eyes were wide and flames were reflected in them.

 

Runt looked up into the old man’s eager countenance. “She said: ‘Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord.’ And suddenly the man wasn’t there anymore. Just Mary on her knees, praying in the dark garden. I rose then to go and there, just a few paces before me, stood the man.”

 

“Did he speak to you, Elias? What did he say?”

 

“He spoke no word, but somehow I knew that I must say nothing of what I had seen and heard until after the baby was born. Then I could speak of it freely, because the whole world must know who has come among them.”

 

The old Rabbi fell to his knees and gathered the boy in his arms: “God is with us, Elias!”, he whispered hoarsely, his eyes fixed upon the single brilliant star flaring in his narrow window. “God is with us!”

 

This short story was originally published in The Waikato Times, The Taranaki Daily News, The Timaru Herald, The Otago Daily Times and The Greymouth Star of Friday, 23 December 2016.

A Stranger Kind Of Magick.

Something Wicked This Way Comes: The ultimate ambition of the Golden Dawn’s adepts was to utilise the “magical imagination” – a process which involved “visualising a desired reality”, concentrating one’s will on it, “moulding its form in astral light” and bringing it, finally, into “the plainest physical reality”. As a description of the process that saw neoliberalism imposed upon the world, this is pretty good. (Assuming, of course, that the mass media counts as “astral light”!)

 

THERE’S A LOT OF INSPIRATION to be found in waiting rooms. At my dentist’s, just the other day, I discovered a veritable treasure-trove in Greg Roughan’s extraordinary contribution to the March 2016 edition of North & South magazine – “Bewitched in the Bay”.

 

Much to its dismay, Havelock North is now inextricably linked with campylobacter poisoning. There was a time, however, when this well-heeled Hawke’s Bay village was regarded as “the Vatican” of esoteric spirituality.

 

According to Robert S. Ellwood, author of Islands of the Dawn: The Story of Alternative Spirituality in New Zealand, at least one American adept is said to have declared: “If you want to hear Elizabethan English, you go to Appalachia; if you want to see what the original Golden Dawn was like, you go to New Zealand.”

 

And, yes, he is talking about that Golden Dawn, or, to give it its full title, the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. This late-nineteenth century British-based occult society will forever be associated with the “wickedest man in the world” and self-proclaimed Beast of the Book of Revelation, Aleister Crowley; and, somewhat more respectably, with the celebrated Irish poet, William Butler Yeats. Roughan’s fascinating article, inspired in part by Ellwood’s book, retells the story of how, long after the original Golden Dawn collapsed amidst scandal and recrimination, its colonial Hawke’s Bay offshoot went on practicing “magick” well into the 1970s.

 

Roughan’s revelations got me thinking about two other imported belief systems which took off and thrived in New Zealand long after their offshore inspirations had faded – or disappeared altogether. The first of these was “social credit” – the esoteric monetary theory formulated by the British engineer, Clifford Hugh (“Major”) Douglas. The second, forever associated with another Douglas, is the extraordinarily pure (some would say extreme) variant of free-market economics which took root here in the 1980s. Neoliberalism, as it is now known, has thrived in New Zealand ever since. To the point where, like gorse, it has driven both its native and exotic competitors into the shade.

 

Social Credit never really took off in Great Britain but, like the magick of the Golden Dawn, it possessed sufficient power to spellbind colonials. In Canada and New Zealand, particularly, social credit-inspired political movements exerted considerable influence over domestic politics – principally during the 1930s. For many years, the Canadian provincial government of Alberta was dominated by social creditors, and several MPs in the First Labour Government (1935-1949) were vocal advocates.

 

With the widespread adoption of the expansionary economic ideas of John Maynard Keynes by progressive post-World War II governments, the numbers following social credit’s monetary theories began to dwindle. In New Zealand, however, the movement refused to die.

 

In 1953, despairing of ever again wielding influence in a major political party, the social creditors reconstituted themselves as the Social Credit Political League. At its first electoral outing in 1954 the League secured 11 percent of the popular vote (an extremely creditable result by today’s MMP standards) and immediately became New Zealand’s third party. At the peak of its popularity in 1981, Social Credit’s share of the popular vote rose to an astonishing 21 percent.

 

By 1987, however, New Zealanders were under the spell of a much more potent variety of monetarist magick. Curiously, the policy prescription which became known as “Rogernomics” (after Roger Douglas, the Labour finance minister who drove it forward) may be traced to another esoteric collection of adepts and initiates, the Mont Pelerin Society.

 

Appalled at the rapid expansion of economic and social democracy unleashed by Keynesian economics, the “classical liberals” of Mont Pelerin, laid out their plans for counter-revolution before the discomforted capitalists of Britain and America, and waited patiently for the right political moment to unleash them.

 

The ultimate ambition of the Golden Dawn’s adepts was to utilise the “magical imagination” – a process which involved “visualising a desired reality”, concentrating one’s will on it, “moulding its form in astral light” and bringing it, finally, into “the plainest physical reality”. As a description of the process that saw neoliberalism imposed upon the world, this is pretty good. (Assuming, of course, that the mass media counts as “astral light”!)

 

Following precedent, New Zealanders seized upon this latest manifestation of esoterica with a zealotry unequalled in the rest of the world. As before, elite enthusiasm for neoliberalism proved crucial. It intensified and gradually took control of practically all of New Zealand’s significant institutions. As though, in the mid-1920s, New Zealanders had woken to discover that everyone in high places, from Governor-General to Chief Justice, Prime Minister to Police Commissioner, were Magister Templi in Havelock North’s occult society

 

Overseas, political support for neoliberalism is fading. But, if its tenure here turns out to be as enduring as the Golden Dawn’s in Havelock North, then New Zealand will not be neoliberal-free until 2046.

 

This essay was originally published in The Press of Tuesday, 20 December 2016.

Playing Sergeant Pepper.

“It was twenty years ago today,” according to the famous Beatles’ track, that “Sergeant Pepper taught the band to play”. Unfortunately, the files on my computer don’t go back quite that far. What I can show you, however, is how “the one and only” Helen Clark taught Labour’s band to play exactly fifteen years ago today. Read this excerpt from my “Politics” column, published in the weekly business newspaper, The Independent, on 19 December 2001, and you’ll be amazed at just how dramatically Labour has gone “in and out of style” between then and now.

 

“WITH FIFTY-ONE PERCENT SUPPORT in the latest CM Research poll, the Labour Party is cruising towards the Year’s end on an enormous wave of public support. What is the secret behind Labour’s winning political formula – a formula which has so far eluded all of its competitors? To hear Helen Clark, or Michael Cullen, or Steve Maharey tell it, the story of Labour’s success is a simple one: “Under-promise and over-deliver”.

 

According to this theory, New Zealanders no longer believe in big promises – so don’t make any. Nor do they expect “the gummint” to do very much of anything to help them out. So, keeping those small promises, and, even more astonishing, actually doing a little bit more than you promised, leaves the voters feeling pathetically grateful.

 

More cynical observers point to Labour’s utter infatuation with opinion polling and focus groups. Its apparatus for taking the public pulse is state-of-the-art, and provides the political leadership with more-or-less instant feedback. Knowing how the electorate is responding to Government policy allows Clark and her ministers to remain in lock-step with public opinion. As the French revolutionary, Danton, is supposed to have remarked, seeing a throng of Parisians passing below his host’s window: “Excuse me, I am their leader – I must follow them.”

 

But these explanations are simply not sufficient to explain Labour’s almost effortless domination of New Zealand politics. Somehow, Clark and her colleagues have plugged themselves – or perhaps that should read “found themselves plugged” – into the zeitgeist of the early 21^st Century.

 

Nothing else can really explain Labour’s apparent imperviousness to 2001’s political disasters – and there have been a few: the Hobbs and Bunkle allowances scandal; the Peter Davis brouhaha; the scrapping of the Skyhawks; the fiscal implications of Michael Cullen’s Super Fund; the underwhelming impact of the Knowledge Wave Conference; the Colonel’s letter and the General’s shredder; Air New Zealand; the war in Afghanistan; Bathgate-gate. It’s a pretty long list, but in spite of them all Labour remains 21 percentage points ahead of its nearest rival. Clearly something else is going on here.

 

The French would call it ennui. Throughout 2001 a feeling of enervation has pervaded New Zealand society, a listlessness that renders outrage and anger altogether too exhausting. It’s almost as if the past fifteen years have left the population feeling numb, shagged-out, too tired to care. Political life is seen as being vaguely ridiculous – filled with people who very badly need to get out more. Political emotion – in particular – is almost universally seen as ersatz, fake, phoney, and too transparently manipulative to be taken seriously.

 

This is where Helen Clark comes to the fore. Her dry - bordering on bored - approach to the business of government perfectly matches the public mood. Politics is a bloody silly business, the Prime Minister seems to be saying, but since somebody has to do it, it might as well be somebody intelligent, experienced and unflappable - like me. To which nearly four out of ten New Zealanders consistently respond “Amen.”

 

Clark’s ministers take their cue from “The Boss” – presenting a public face of stolid competence almost totally devoid of colour. Like the rest of New Zealand, they seem resigned to just getting on with it, and as far as most of the electorate is concerned, that’s just fine.

 

The whole essence of this style of government was summed up by one of the Prime Ministers spin doctors at the recent Labour Party Conference: “Sure it’s dull”, he said, “but that’s okay. Dull is good.”

 

Fifty-one percent of the country seems to agree.”

 

I’m just not sure whether all of that is “guaranteed to raise a smile” … or a tear.

 

 

This essay was originally posted on The Daily Blog of Monday, 19 December 2016.

In Defence Of Conservative Leftism.

Standing Up For Democratic Socialism: In the present political climate, speaking up for the Left’s core principles and the protection of the constitutional framework that makes such expression possible, should be the progressive movement’s top priorities.

 

“CONSERVATIVE LEFTISTS” espousing “conservative leftism” have become a thing. The term is applied (neither generously nor kindly) to those ageing members of the broader New Zealand Left whose understanding of progressive ideals was forged in the 1960s and 70s. Generally speaking, conservative leftists are depicted as political has-beens whose only continuing contribution to the progressive cause involves standing in its way.

 

Conservative leftists (among whom I proudly count myself) naturally dispute this extremely negative characterisation of their contribution. They would argue that, in the present political climate, speaking up for the Left’s core principles and the protection of the constitutional framework that makes such expression possible, should be the progressive movement’s top priorities.

 

Balancing individual rights against collective need has always been the Left’s most daunting challenge. Err too far in advancing the former and we end up like the New Zealand Labour Party (NZLP) in the 1980s. Advance too energetically the claims of the latter and we rehearse all the worst aspects of Soviet-style socialism and the Bolivarian populism of present-day Venezuela.

 

The political system which makes possible the simultaneous advancement of both individual rights and collective needs is representative democracy. Which is why the NZLP, in its post-war search for a term to distinguish its own political philosophy from the totalitarian Marxist-Leninist doctrines of the Soviets, hit upon the term “Democratic Socialism” (the promotion of which still constitutes one of Labour’s key objectives). That political parties are required to seek a popular mandate for their policies – and then have that mandate reaffirmed – militates against the sort of revolutionary extremism that, for nearly a century, has led so many people to associate socialism with regimentation and repression.

 

Conservative leftism’s unwavering commitment to democracy (and to all the patient political persuasion that goes with it) not only earns it the scorn of the revolutionary left, but also the enmity of the neoliberal right. This mutual loathing has, on occasion, given rise to some pretty unholy political alliances. Confronted with the unwillingness of the Pakeha majority to elect Maori to public office, for example, radical leftists have cheered on the Executive’s use of special appointments to by-pass the electoral process altogether.

 

This “my enemy’s enemy is my friend” approach to politics is deeply offensive to conservative leftists. If the history of the last forty years has taught us anything, it is that neoliberalism is fundamentally incompatible with democracy. The “governance” we hear so much about from neoliberal bureaucrats is a very different beast from the “government of the people, by the people, for the people” that defines representative democracy. Neoliberals understand as well as conservative leftists the power of the democratic process to enforce an equitable balance between the demands of the market and the needs of the population – and they will go to almost any lengths to undermine it. Just ask the people of Canterbury.

 

Allowing the ruling class to pull off an end-run around democracy may work to the short-term advantage of the radical left on a limited number of highly contentious issues – like affirmative action – but in the long run such tactics can only weaken the institutions that make it possible for ordinary people to challenge their rulers. Conservative leftists would further argue that by offering no serious opposition to the radical left’s anti-racist, anti-sexist, anti-homophobic and pro-immigration agenda, neoliberalism has shown the politics of identity to be entirely compatible with extreme individualism and unfettered market freedom.

 

It should go without saying, but in the febrile atmosphere of contemporary leftism I suppose it must be stated explicitly, that the conservative left in no way resiles from its long and proud history of battling racism, sexism and homophobia. The dismantling of all legislative barriers to the full and equal participation of all citizens in the life of their communities is fundamental to the Left’s emancipatory narrative. Where conservative leftists part company with their more radical comrades, however, is over the degree to which the coercive powers of the state should be deployed to curb the expression of personal prejudice. State sanctions against hate speech may silence hateful expression, but they do not extinguish hatred itself. Hate is a patient and depressingly resilient human emotion. Just ask Donald Trump.

 

The conservative left’s wariness of asking the state to fight the progressive movement’s battles for it also extends to the foreign policy arena. Some of the most vituperative critics of conservative leftists are to be found among those radical left-wing “humanitarian interventionists” who, on the vexed issue of the Syrian Civil War, have argued themselves onto the side of western imperialism. They rail against the alleged hypocrisy of leftists who criticised the US invasion of Iraq, but have maintained an immoral silence over Russia’s support for the government of Bashar al-Assad.

 

Conservative leftism’s response is simple. Wars are such appalling things that the best foreign policy course is almost always to avoid getting into them. If war rages on nonetheless, then the next best course of action is to bring the fighting to an end. If this can be done by negotiation, then negotiate. If negotiation fails, then the next next best way to stop a war is to win it. This is exactly what Bashar al-Assad and his Russian and Iranian allies are doing.

 

It is a regrettable but undeniable fact that those who cry: “Let justice be done though the heavens fall!” are seldom to be found living in the rubble. It is equally true that over the course of the last three unnecessarily bloody decades, western imperialism’s “humanitarian interventions” have created a great deal of rubble.

 

The conservative left’s unwavering purpose is to preserve progressivism as a movement with mass appeal. That means articulating and adapting the Left’s 250-year-old narrative about freedom, equality and solidarity to a post-modern age in which there is little patience for the grand narratives of the past. If Frederic Jameson is right, and post-modernism is indeed the “cultural logic of late capitalism”, then the system’s impatience with metanarratives is unsurprising. Stories are powerful things. Big stories show us how to live, and how to die. Even bigger stories teach us about the values that are worth living – and dying – for.

 

For the very good reason that it has freed and fed more people than any other grand narrative in human history, we conservative leftists will continue to guard closely the story of the Left.

 

A version of this essay was originally posted on The Daily Blog of Sunday, 18 December 2016.

Sinking In Donald Trump's Swamp.

Suckers! With every passing day it grows clearer that President-Elect Donald Trump has no intention of sending the wild rivers of white working-class wrath roaring through Washington’s reeking stables. Trump is no Hercules. He will not use the powers of the Presidency to slay the monsters of privilege and corruption. Trump is a creature of the swamp – and like recognises like.

 

SOME WEEKS BACK I penned an opinion-piece entitled “Looking on the Bright Side of President Trump”. Exactly how the unrestrained spirit of Pollyanna seized control of my mental faculties remains a mystery. My foolish decision to get blind drunk on her optimism was probably due to the fact that every sober attempt to come to grips with our Trumpian future left me waist-deep in a gloomy swamp of pessimism.

 

Unfortunately, Pollyanna’s 100 percent proof “Glad Game” didn’t help. A month has passed and now the whole world is waist-deep in the big muddy – and sinking fast.

 

Before he started naming his Cabinet, it was still possible to write: “That Donald Trump possesses an enormous ego is indisputable. The question is: will that ego be better served by becoming one of America’s truly great presidents – or one of its very worst?” Now we know that his promise to “drain the swamp” was a cynical inversion of his true intentions.

 

With every passing day it grows clearer that Trump has no intention of sending the wild rivers of white working-class wrath roaring through Washington’s reeking stables. Trump is no Hercules. He will not use the powers of the Presidency to slay the monsters of privilege and corruption. Trump is a creature of the swamp – and like recognises like.

 

Trump’s embryonic administration shows every sign of growing into a veritable Hydra of swamp-begotten evil. His pick for Attorney-General is the epitome of genteel Southern racism. His preferred national security team is the closest the United States has come in its 240-year history to being “protected” by a military junta. The man he is contemplating for Secretary-of-State is CEO of the oil giant Exxon – a man with whom the Russian President, Vladimir Putin, will have no difficulty doing business. How do we know? Because Rex Tillerson has already been there, done that, and has a bright, shiny Russian medal (the Order of Friendship no less!) to prove it.

 

In happier times, the moniker “Mad Dog” would’ve constituted a pretty big obstacle to being considered for any – let alone a major – presidential appointment. But these are far from happy times and Marine General James “Mad Dog” Mattis is Trump’s pick for Secretary-of-Defence. Why “Mad Dog”? Well, this is the man who told the Afghans: “I come in peace. I didn’t bring artillery. But I'm pleading with you, with tears in my eyes: If you f**k with me, I'll kill you all.”

 

Mind you, if Trump continues to threaten Chinese exporters with a 45 percent tariff; and goes on talking blithely about turning Richard Nixon’s greatest foreign policy achievement, the One China Policy, into a readily expendable negotiating chip; then having a mad dog Marine General as your Secretary-of-Defence may turn out to be, as another mad dog Marine once put it, “a pretty neat idea.”

 

But even if (and it’s a very big “if”) Trump’s unintentional embrace of Nixon’s infamous “Madman Theory of Diplomacy” is enough to keep China’s nuclear missiles in their silos (remembering, of course, that we have nothing now to fear from the ICBMs of America’s new “very, very, very good friends”, the Russians) then that other global incinerator, Climate Change, is unlikely to start cooling down any time soon.

 

Trump’s pick to take over the US Environmental Protection Agency, Scott Pruitt, is a no-holds-barred climate change denier of such impressive ideological rigidity that even George W. Bush is decrying his appointment.

 

Dubbya’s opposition notwithstanding, Trump’s transition team has sanctioned the following media statement from the politician who has never received a “Big Oil” corporate donation that he wasn’t happy to bank:

 

“The American people are tired of seeing billions of dollars drained from our economy due to unnecessary EPA regulations, and I intend to run this agency in a way that fosters both responsible protection of the environment and freedom for American businesses.”

 

By “responsible” protection, Mr Pruitt presumably means the sort of protection afforded to the hen-house by the fox.

 

If the American Republic was anything like the Roman Republic, then the equivalents of Cassius and Brutus would already be sharpening their daggers against this combed-over Caesar. Indeed, it could be argued that all that stands between Trump and the imminent demise of American greatness is a handful of patriotic United States senators.

 

Roll on the constitutional Ides of March.

 

This essay was originally published in The Waikato Times, The Taranaki Daily News, The Timaru Herald, The Otago Daily Times and The Greymouth Star of Friday, 16 December 2016.

The Dangers of Political Adrenalin

A Fraction Too Much Friction: Those high-drama, high-risk moments in a nation’s history, when the political adrenalin is coursing through the body politic, are precisely the moments when rushing to any sort of judgement – let alone action – is the worst possible thing politicians, journalists and political activists can do.

 

I’VE ONLY EVER MET ONE serving agent of the Central Intelligence Agency. As far as most of us lefties knew he was a liberal American academic; friendly, generous, with a fund of interesting stories to tell. Outwardly, at least, the man seemed harmless. It was only when he was driving three of us away from a late-night exercise in radical derring-do that the thought occurred to me that there might be more to this guy than met the eye.
 

As our wheel-man whisked me and my comrades away from the scene of our “symbolic action” he gave us a piece of extremely good advice.
 

“The moments after an action such as this”, he said, “are always the most dangerous. Your bloodstream is full of adrenalin and you feel invincible. The truth of the matter, however, is that your judgement is shot. That’s why it’s in the immediate aftermath of high-risk activity that people are most prone to making the sort of stupid mistakes that get them caught. So, I’m just going to drive around for the next half hour or so. Give you guys a chance to decompress: for the adrenalin to work its way out of your system.”
 

It occurred to me that we were probably listening to the voice of experience. And something told me that the high-risk activities our driver had been involved in were almost certainly a whole lot more hazardous than a bit of symbolic protest action.
 

A few months later, our American friend was engaged in a discussion about political radicalism and let slip that he had once lectured a roomful of Northern Irish internees: IRA and UDF hard men. That set me thinking. What sort of security clearance would you need to be given access to political prisoners of that ilk? And who would issue it? British Army Intelligence? MI5? MI6? The guy simply had to be a spook.
 

Thirty-five years later, at an end-of-year party in Auckland, I mentioned my suspicions to a mutual American friend. He gave me a sharp look and grinned. “Well spotted”, was all he said.
 

Over the years, I’ve become convinced that our American friend’s advice applies with equal force to the after-effects of collective – as well as personal – excitement. Those high-drama, high-risk moments in a nation’s history, when the political adrenalin is coursing through the body politic, are precisely the moments when rushing to any sort of judgement – let alone action – is the worst possible thing politicians, journalists and political activists can do.
 

John Key’s resignation, for example, was just such a moment of high political drama and risk. People got excited. Adrenalin flowed. Our collective judgement was shot. All sorts of stupid mistakes – and statements – were made, and all sorts of silly stories were published and posted. What the country needed was someone to drive it around for a while and give it a chance to decompress.
 

Because Bill English is not some sort of Jesuit torturer just aching to draw blood with his newly acquired political instruments. Nor is Paula Bennet a whip-wielding Westie dominatrix in spiked heels and a leopard-skin corset. These two human-beings are nothing more, nor less, than National Party politicians – and by no means the worst of their breed.
 

And, before you start reeling off all the many and varied sins of this government, it is, perhaps, worth considering how very similar it is to the government which preceded it.
 

Who was it who pioneered the policy of moving beneficiaries from welfare to work, and kept their children poor? Allowed the public housing stock to rot where it stood rather than build new state houses? Refused to re-empower the trade unions, or rescue public broadcasting? Which party was it that signed the New Zealand-China FTA and set in motion the diplomacy that culminated in the TPPA? Who persecuted Ahmed Zaoui and masterminded nuclear-free New Zealand’s rapprochement with its “very, very, very good friends” the Americans?
 

The “continuity” represented by Bill English being sworn-in as John Key’s successor extends backwards in time well beyond the 2008 General Election, and will extend forward well beyond any change of government in 2017.
 

But, if it’s the excitement of dis-continuity you’re after, then for God’s sake try to remember that collective good judgement is generally exercised in inverse proportion to the amount of collective adrenalin coursing through your political system.
 

This essay was originally posted on The Daily Blog of Tuesday, 13 December 2016.

Nikki Kaye Returns To Save The Day.

A Very Welcome Return To Health: The dismay with which the news of Nikki Kaye’s cancer diagnosis was received by John Key and his senior colleagues is easily imagined. Had her affliction forced Ms Kaye to resign from parliament, the Auckland Central seat would have been up for grabs. Upon the outcome of the ensuing by-election would ride nothing less than the National-led Government’s ability to govern New Zealand in anything resembling a predictable and confident fashion. In other words, a defeat in Auckland Central would have precipitated an early general election.

 

A PARTICULARLY PLEASING sight for some very sore National Party eyes. That was the Auckland Central MP, Nikki Kaye, when she bounded into Parliament last week in remarkably fine fettle. Granted leave from Parliament to deal with a worrying diagnosis of breast cancer, Ms Kaye’s future has for many weeks been uncertain. It has also been the subject of some grim-faced discussions among National’s leading strategists – including the then prime minister, John Key. Her dramatic return to health – and politics – must be a huge relief, not only to family and friends, but also to her party.

 

National’s strategists’ concern over the fate of Auckland Central was entirely justifiable. All of them know how to count, and, of late, the parliamentary arithmetic has become decidedly tricky.

 

The loss of Northland to Winston Peters in March of last year left the Government in a pretty parliamentary pickle. With 60 seats of their own, plus the rock-solid support of the Epsom MP, Act Leader David Seymour, the Government had commanded a one seat majority in the 121 member House of Representatives. After losing Northland, however, National found itself in firm control of just 60 seats. Overnight, Mr Key’s less slavish support partners, the Ohariu MP, United Party Leader Peter Dunne, and the two Maori Party MPs, Te Ururoa Flavell and Marama Fox, found themselves with enhanced political leverage vis-à-vis the Government. The most embarrassing example of this new-found influence is the Maori Party’s emendation of National’s proposed reform of the Resource Management Act.

 

Clearly, the loss of another National Party-held seat would leave the Government in an even more precarious parliamentary position. Even with pledges of unwavering support from David Seymour and Peter Dunne, the construction of the Government’s election-year budget, and the success of its legislative programme, would be entirely dependent on the good will and support of the Maori Party.

 

The dismay with which the news of Ms Kaye’s cancer diagnosis was received by Mr Key and his senior colleagues is easily imagined. Had her affliction forced Ms Kaye to resign from parliament, the Auckland Central seat would have been up for grabs. Upon the outcome of the ensuing by-election would ride nothing less than the National-led Government’s ability to govern New Zealand in anything resembling a predictable and confident fashion. In other words, a defeat in Auckland Central would have precipitated an early general election.

 

Unfortunately for National, its chances of holding Auckland Central in a by-election are very slim. The Opposition parties, understanding that National’s failure to hold the seat would bring forward the election, would likely agree to give Labour’s Jacinda Ardern a clear run – just as they did for Michael Wood in the recent Mt Roskill by-election. Such a clearing-of-the-decks for Labour would add an additional 2,000 votes, at least, to Ms Ardern’s 2014 tally of 11,894 votes – more than enough to overwhelm Ms Kaye’s 2014 electorate majority of 600 votes.

 

Significantly, National’s Mt Roskill campaign turned out to be extremely disheartening. At the start of the operation the party’s strategists had dreamed of making good the loss of Northland by stealing Mt Roskill from Labour. Rumours circulated that National had come into possession of a new, devilishly sophisticated get-out-the-vote software package. If it could turn out National’s 2014 Party Vote, then the seat would be theirs. It was not to be. Not only did the technology fail, but so, too, did John Key’s campaigning magic. The portents for Auckland Central were anything but auspicious.

 

MMP’s rules also disadvantaged National. If a by-election is won by a candidate currently occupying a List seat, as happened with Winston Peters, then not only does the successful candidate secure the electorate seat, but the next person on the Party’s List also enters Parliament. NZ First emerged from the 2014 General Election with 11 MPs. After the Northland By-Election it had 12. If Jacinda Ardern, a List MP, won Auckland Central in a by-election, then Labour’s numbers in the House would be boosted from 32 to 33 by the arrival (probably) of Raymond Huo off its List.

 

The fate of Auckland Central has certainly presented the leaders of the seven parliamentary parties with a complex and volatile political calculation. For weeks now they have been scratching their heads and sharpening their pencils. Complicating the political maths still further is David Shearer’s imminent return to the United Nations. Voters living in the safe Labour seat of Mt Albert face a by-election as early as February.

 

Buoyed by the win in Mt Roskill, and heartened by the prospect of two more in Mt Albert and Auckland Central, Andrew Little’s “bring it on”  challenge to the new National leader made good strategic sense.

 

Which is why Nikki Kaye’s recovery must be the best news Bill English has received since John Key told him he was quitting.

 

This essay was originally published in The Press of Tuesday, 13 December 2016.

The No. 8 Wire Prime Minister.

Principles? Seriously?  New Zealanders, as a people, are not much given to following theories of any kind. If we subscribe to any philosophy at all it is the philosophy of pragmatism. If a problem can be fixed by using the political equivalent of No. 8 Wire, then “no worries, mate”.

 

JUST HOURS BEFORE HE RESIGNED, the Prime Minister told RNZ’s Kim Hill that “you can’t right the wrongs of the past”. He was responding to questions about the acknowledged ill-treatment of children in state care during the 1950s, 60s and 70s, and whether his government was prepared to sanction an independent inquiry into multiple allegations of systemic child abuse.

 

It struck me as an extremely odd thing to say. Not least because righting the wrongs of the past is a cause into which this National Government has poured (and continues to pour) hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars.

 

True, the wrongs being righted with government money are not those inflicted upon acutely vulnerable children in the care of state institutions – like the Epuni Boys Home. No. The Crown’s cash is being doled out to compensate Maori iwi and hapu for wrongs inflicted by its representatives as far back as the 1850s, 60s and 70s.

 

What’s more, for the wrongs inflicted upon nineteenth century Maori by the colonial authorities, the present government of New Zealand (usually in the person of the Minister for Treaty Settlements, Chris Finlayson QC) has issued multiple apologies. But, issuing a public apology to the hundreds of young people (a great many of them Maori) who were, according to the testimony of their victims, beaten, tortured and raped by public servants acting in loco parentis: that, apparently, is impossible.

 

That John Key failed to recognise the extraordinary inconsistency embedded in his response to Kim Hill’s questions speaks volumes about the way he and his government have played the game of politics.

 

Mr Key and his ministers do not come at the nation’s problems with solutions informed by a common philosophical understanding of the world. If they did, then the need to inquire into the alleged injustices suffered by state wards would be as pressing as the need to inquire into the alleged injustices suffered by Maori iwi and hapu. And if those injustices were proved, then the need for proper compensation, and a public expression of culpability and regret, would be just as apparent.

 

Lacking a common philosophy, National’s ministers are forced to respond to economic and social problems in an ad hoc, piecemeal fashion. They do not appear to recognise that much of the advice they receive is underpinned by philosophical and ideological assumptions with which their party has little affinity. Assumptions flatly contradicted by the arguments ministers use to convince and/or placate the public.

 

Public Choice Theory, for example, seeks to limit the power of state providers to “capture” the processes by which services are delivered to the public. Those who subscribe to the theory are, consequently, searching constantly for ways to disrupt and “downsize” bureaucratic systems. Government ministers, on the other hand, have often attempted to “sell” such measures as the only way of shifting scarce resources to the people on “the front lines” of service delivery.

 

It would be wrong, however, to suggest that philosophical inconsistency is a failing which constantly occupies the mind of the ordinary Kiwi voter. New Zealanders, as a people, are not much given to following theories of any kind. If we subscribe to any philosophy at all it is the philosophy of pragmatism. If a problem can be fixed by using the political equivalent of No. 8 Wire, then “no worries, mate”.

 

The problem with this “pragmatic” approach to politics is that, eventually, one’s society finds itself held together by nothing but No. 8 Wire temporary fixes. When every remedy is ad hoc, and every argument is cobbled together to meet the needs of the moment, then the inconsistencies of approach and internal policy contradictions reach a level that even the most “practical” of voters is no longer able to overlook.

 

If it is simply not possible to right the wrongs of the past, as the outgoing Prime Minister insists, then why is the long-suffering taxpayer called upon continually to address the wrongs inflicted upon Maori in the nineteenth century? If it is unreasonable to become too agitated about the way children in state care were treated in the 1960s, then why apologise for the colonial confiscations of the 1860s?

It is to be hoped that Bill English brings to the office of prime minister a more consistent and coherent political philosophy than his predecessor. No. 8 Wire cannot fix everything.

 

This essay was originally published in The Waikato Times, The Taranaki Daily News, The Timaru Herald, The Otago Daily Times and The Greymouth Star of Friday, 9 December 2016.

John Key Bound For The IMF. Real News Or Fake News?

Whaddya Reckon? With everything that's going on in politics at the moment, you might think that the NZ Herald's deputy-political editor would be extremely cautious about rushing into print with a year-old story, based on nothing more than speculation, posted on an obscure Napier website, that turned out to be completely wrong. No such luck.

 

IS JOHN KEY really in the running for Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF)? Well, yes, according to the NZ Herald’s Deputy-Political Editor, Claire Trevett, he is. Upon closer examination, however, Trevett’s story looks a lot more like fake news than real news.

 

Let’s take a look at her source – a speculative opinion piece posted on the Manufacturers Success Connection (MSC) website under the dateline Monday, 21 December 2015 08:38. That’s right – 2015 – just short of one year ago.

 

A year ago the Managing Director of the IMF, Christine Lagarde, was embroiled in yet another of the financial-cum-political scandals that have wracked the French Republic over recent years.

 

The anonymous author of the MSC NewsWire story is clearly of the view that since Lagarde had just been told by the French courts that she must stand trial for her role in the so-called “Tapie Affair”, she will soon be standing down from her job at the IMF.

 

The writer further speculates that since there is a “move to place a non-European official at the helm of the IMF”, a “door of opportunity has unexpectedly opened to enable New Zealand prime minister, John Key, to maintain his upward trajectory in the form of becoming managing director of the International Monetary Fund.”

 

Except that the “door of opportunity” was closed, and has remained firmly shut.

 

Christine Lagarde is still the Managing Director of the IMF. Her Board of Directors were in no mood to lose the services of their high-flying employee. Citing the legal doctrine of the presumption of innocence, they were happy to keep Madame Lagarde exactly where she was.

 

The other problem with the MSC NewsWire story is that if there ever was a “move” to place a non-European in the Managing Director’s chair, then it did not get very far. Nor was such a “move” remotely likely to succeed. Ever since the appointment of the first IMF Managing Director, the Belgian Camille Gutt, in 1946, the position has been filled exclusively by Europeans. There has been one each from Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany and Spain; two from Sweden; and five from France. The chances of John Key sashaying his way down the that particular catwalk are pretty close to nil.

 

The more important question, however, is how did Claire Trevett ever come into possession of a speculative news release issued by a very obscure website – Manufacturers Success Connection – just shy of one year ago? The MSC NewsWire was set up by Napier entrepreneur, Max Farndale, in 2012, and while it’s a lively and a perfectly respectable website, it is not really on a par with Reuters or Associated Press!

 

It would only be speculation, of course, but, in the current political environment, isn’t it highly likely that the dissemination of a story such as this, to a person occupying a critical media post (such as deputy-political editor of the country’s largest newspaper) is going to be the work of the out-going prime minister’s political opponents?

 

All the more reason, you would think, to be extremely cautious about rushing into print with a year-old story, based on nothing more than speculation, posted on an obscure Napier website, that turned out to be completely wrong.

 

The sort of fake news item that you might expect to find on Breitbart News? Certainly. But on the NZ Herald website?

 

This essay was originally posted on The Daily Blog of Wednesday, 7 December 2016.

Winning Mt Roskill The Old-Fashioned Way.

Native Son: One of the reasons Wood was able to generate such spectacular support from Mt Roskill voters is because he is one of them. He and his young family have lived in the electorate for 13 years. During that time he has repeatedly proved himself acceptable to his neighbours by standing, successfully, in local government elections. In an electorate chock-filled with the adherents of many faiths, Wood is a self-acknowledged Christian.

 

IT WAS AN OLD-FASHIONED LABOUR VICTORY, won with old-fashioned Labour weapons, by an old-fashioned Labour candidate. Michael Wood deserves the heartiest congratulations for his stunning success in Mt Roskill. Capturing two-thirds of the votes cast is an impressive achievement no matter which way you slice it. Labour is, therefore, entitled to a few moments of self-congratulation at Wood’s success – but only a few. Because the party’s low membership, and its perilously stretched budget, will make it almost impossible to replicate Wood’s success across the country in 2017.
 

Wood threw everything bar the kitchen-sink into holding Mt Roskill for Labour. Beginning his campaign weeks before the by-election was officially announced, he made sure his name and face were everywhere Roskillians looked. They simply couldn’t escape him! Nor could they escape the vast army of volunteers Wood managed to enlist for the duration of his campaign. Canvassers and pamphlet-droppers from all over Auckland – and much farther afield – poured into the electorate in a very passable imitation of the Labour Party machine which had propelled the likes of Phil Goff into Parliament in the early-1980s.
 

And there’s the rub. Electioneering in the early-1980s took place under the rules of First-Past-The-Post (FPP). The very same rules that, in 2016, apply only to – you guessed it – by-elections. Under FPP, and in by-elections, the electors have only one vote to cast. So, there is no chance that, having identified the voters intending to vote for your party’s candidate, and driven them to the polling place, they decide to give their Electorate Vote to your candidate, and their Party Vote to an opposing party.
 

This is exactly what happened in Mt Roskill in 2014. Phil Goff won easily with 55 percent of the Electorate Vote, but National won the all-important Party Vote by more than 2,000 votes. The Mixed Member Proportional (MMP) electoral system which has operated in New Zealand since 1996, by allowing electors to “split” their two votes between two different parties, has rendered the highly effective “machine” politics of FPP frustratingly unreliable.
 

Except at by-elections. Knowing this, Wood was able to assemble and operate an old-fashioned “election-day system” to “get out the vote” in Mt Roskill.
 

An election-day system is a complex process for identifying how many of your party’s supporters have already voted; how many need a hurry-up; and how many require a lift to the nearest polling-place. How do the political parties know who their supporters are? By knocking on thousands of doors and asking. How do they know if they have, or haven’t, voted? By stationing scrutineers in every polling place.
 

It’s a fearsomely labour-intensive process, requiring upwards of 200-300 volunteers to operate effectively. But, when the canvassing work has been done; the database is up-to-date; and the scrutineers, communicators, checker-offers, telephone operators and drivers have all been trained and deployed; then a candidate can be confident that the overwhelming majority of his or her identified voters will end up casting their ballots. The veteran party leader, Jim Anderton, was so good at running his own election-day system that he could predict, with frightening accuracy, how many votes he would get.
 

This was how Wood “got out” Labour’s vote on 3 December. And, if Labour had a sufficiently large membership, it could look forward to doing the same across the whole country. The problem, of course, is that Labour does not have anything like enough members to get out its optimal vote in 2017.
 

Nor, frankly, does it have anything like enough candidates like Michael Wood. One of the reasons Wood was able to generate such spectacular support from Mt Roskill voters is because he is one of them. He and his young family have lived in the electorate for 13 years. During that time he has repeatedly proved himself acceptable to his neighbours by standing, successfully, in local government elections. In an electorate chock-filled with the adherents of many faiths, Wood is a self-acknowledged Christian.
 

Forty years ago, practically all Labour candidates fitted the above description. In 2016, however, Wood is something of a political throwback: an old-fashioned Labour man more suited to when Labour could boast 85,000 branch members and there was no such thing as the Party Vote.
 

If Andrew Little wishes to replicate Wood’s success, then he will have to make good all of Labour’s current deficiencies. He needs to increase the party’s membership tenfold and replenish its war-chest. He needs to identify, as Wood identified, the most serious problems confronting his supporters and to offer them practical and believable solutions. Finally, he needs to ensure that Labour fields candidates firmly rooted in their communities, whose life experiences and personal values complement those of their voter base.
 

An old-fashioned formula for securing the electoral support of New Zealanders? Perhaps. But as Michael Wood has proved – it works.
 

This essay was originally posted on the Stuff website on Tuesday, 6 December 2016.

What A Way To Go! Some Initial Thoughts On John Key’s Resignation.

So Long - And Thanks For All The Votes: To leave office undefeated and unpushed; with New Zealand’s economy the envy of the OECD, and with his party hovering implausibly close to 50 percent in the polls; no one has done it before – and it will be a bloody long time before anybody does it again.

 

RELINQUISHING POWER holds almost as many dangers for a political leader as the risky business of acquiring it. If John Key had chosen December 2015 to announce his intention of retiring from politics in December 2016, then the past twelve months would have been a messy combination of House of Cards and Game of Thrones.

 

Factions would have consolidated around the National politicians most likely to succeed, and investors would have put their plans on hold until the shape of the new regime became clear. Politically and economically, giving New Zealand advance warning of his intention to step down would have been a very foolish thing for John Key to have done. And whatever else he may be, John Key is no fool.

 

By surprising everyone with his resignation (and everyone was surprised) and then nominating Bill English as his preferred successor (with Steven Joyce as Finance Minister) Key has ruthlessly restricted the room for manoeuvre of all the other claimants to National’s crown. English’s and Joyce’s principal rivals, Judith Collins and Paula Bennett, are now at risk of being branded “rebel pretenders” to Key’s vacant throne.

 

If either, or both, of these women force the issue to a Caucus vote they will likely be painted as selfish and disruptive by English and Joyce (and Key?) . In the face of the shock and dismay which the Prime Minister’s resignation has occasioned both inside and outside of the National Party, the succession team will argue strongly that the interests of the country are best served by a calm and smooth transition of power. They will insist that the last thing National needs; the last thing New Zealand needs; is for these two ambitious women to plunge the governing party into a bitter struggle for power.

 

Whether or not the combined influence of Key, English and Joyce proves sufficient to squash the ambitions of Collins and Bennett depends on how many members of the National Caucus are willing to persist with Key’s Labour-Lite policy settings. While he could point to three election victories on the trot and consistently favourable poll results, Key’s ideological apostasy, while not forgiven, could, at the very least, be overlooked. With Key gone, however, those wishing to restore National’s right-wing default settings may conclude that the tree of free-market capitalism needs to be watered with the blood of the party’s remaining pragmatists.

 

For Andrew Little and Labour, a win for the National Right would be the best possible outcome of Key’s departure. As Matthew Hooton commented, only this morning, the Labour Party in 2017 will not be running – as Michael Wood was running – against Pamjeet Parmar, but against John Key: a very different proposition altogether. Well, not any more. Labour may have had no answer to the political shape-shifter who dominated New Zealand politics so effortlessly for the best part of a decade, but finding the correct answer to the right-wing sneers of Collins and Bennet - that will not be a problem.

 

Which is why Key left vacant the position of Deputy Prime Minister. His clear message to Collins and Bennett: if you want to fight over something – fight over the deputy’s slot. That way, if English fails to win National a fourth term, a successor will be ready and waiting. Neat.

 

But then, everything about John Key’s fourteen-year run in New Zealand politics has been neat and tidy. Almost as if, at some point early in his career, he had negotiated a deal with Mephistopheles & Partners Ltd.

 

Perhaps that’s it? Perhaps the principal shareholder in Mephistopheles & Partners Ltd has decided to call in his debt? Perhaps John Key’s unprecedented mode of departure was the severance package?

 

To leave office undefeated and unpushed; with New Zealand’s economy the envy of the OECD, and with his party hovering implausibly close to 50 percent in the polls; no one has done it before – and it will be a bloody long time before anybody does it again.

 

What a way to go!

 

This essay was originally posted on The Daily Blog of Monday, 5 December 2016.

Prime Minister John Key Resigns.

Why?

 

This posting is exclusive to Bowalley Road.

“Die Boomers, Die!” – A Dispatch From The Future.

"Steady, Charlie, old boy! Breathe!"

 

“The Boomers will be hunted in the streets by marauding Millennials raised on a diet of electronic screens and empathy reducing paracetamol. Buy shares in a razor wire factory would be today’s top tip.”

 

–  Excerpt from a comment posted on The Daily Blog

 

 

THE AGED DEFENDERS HEARD THE MOB before they saw it. The rhythmic chanting of “Die Boomers, Die!” and “Fee, Fi, Foe, Fum – we smell the blood of Boomer scum!” Moments later they were shielding their eyes from the sun-bright twinkle of a thousand smart-phone flashes. The Millennials were advancing up the road, taking selfies as they came.

 

“Any sign of the Police?” Charlie Watson spoke into his own cell-phone, as the mob of Millennials flowed up-to-and-around the razor-wire-topped, four-metre-high walls of the retirement village.

 

“Not yet, Charlie. Their dispatcher says that ours isn’t the only village under attack tonight. Word is that the Restful Gardens complex is also under attack.”

 

“Really? I didn’t think these kids were that stupid. Don’t they realise that its full of the parents of Chinese Gen-Xers? The Consulate won’t wait for the Police. The latest revision of the Chinese-New Zealand FTA allows the People’s Republic to use deadly force against anyone threatening the lives or property of Chinese nationals.”

 

“Yes, people are already tweeting that the Consulate’s helicopter gunships are strafing the crowds. Scores of casualties, apparently.”

 

Charlie sighed. “When will they ever learn?”

 

Suddenly, the air was filled with the sound of a screaming car engine. The Millennial sea parted as the electronically-guided vehicle made for the village’s steel gates at top speed.

 

“Driverless rammer!” Charlie yelled into his cell-phone. “Take it out, Bill! Take it out!”

 

Bill Ramsden squeezed the trigger of his 50-calibre machine-gun and watched as the explosive rounds tore the car to a thousand pieces. A great wail went up from the Millennials as the petrol tank exploded in a searing fireball.

 

As if in sympathy, scores of Molotov Cocktails arced through the air. In seconds the village’s prize-winning rose-gardens were ablaze.

 

“Bastards!” Charlie shouted, as his precious blooms burned.

 

Blood-pressure rising dangerously, the old Baby Boomer jammed the butt of his sniper-rifle into his shoulder. His rheumy eye, pressed to the scope, followed the bouncing laser dot as it traversed the bodies seething beneath him.

 

Confronted with their magnified faces, a pang of guilt tightened his throat. They were all so young: burdened down with debts they could never hope to discharge; eking out a precarious living as gig-geeks; cooped-up in the high-rise slums of the Unitary Plan’s sixteenth iteration. These kids could barely afford to eat – let alone equip themselves with the sort of high-powered weaponry authorised by the Boomer-dominated government after the first Millennial hunting-packs had left dozens of elderly bodies strewn along suburban streets.

 

Remembering the fear and outrage that had swept the country after the first attacks, Charlie hardened his heart and brought the laser-dot to rest on the “Non-Voting and Proud!” T-shirt of a bearded hipster working furiously to haul away a dislodged coil of razor-wire. Gripped firmly between his teeth was the Millennial killers’ weapon-of-choice – a wicked-looking hunting knife.

 

“Steady, Charlie, old boy!”, he muttered to himself. “Breathe!” The laser-dot moved steadily upwards and came to rest in the middle of the hipster’s forehead. Charlie’s finger tightened on the trigger.

 

It was only in the split second between the explosive crack of the rifle and the young man’s skull exploding, that Charlie recognised the face of his grand-son.

 

This short story was originally posted on The Daily Blog of Sunday, 4 December 2016.