A Burnt Child: Some Thoughts On Jordan Williams' Successful Defamation Suit Against Colin Craig.

A Burnt Child With No Fear Of Fire: New Zealanders expect their leaders to make informed and sensible political choices. We do not expect them to thrust their hands into one avoidable fire after another and allow them to be burned black.

 

COLIN CRAIG suffers from the political equivalent of leprosy. He lacks the acutely sensitive nerve-endings which allow professional politicians to avoid issues that are too hot to handle. Again and again, Craig has thrust his hands into the fire of political controversy, seemingly oblivious to the increasingly debilitating consequences.

 

An experienced politician would never have written – let alone posted to every New Zealand household – a detailed response to the accusations of his political enemies. If what your opponents are saying about you has gained sufficient currency to require such denials, then it is almost certainly too late for them to do any good.

 

And yet, this is exactly what Craig did. Worse, he wrote the pamphlet himself. Had he employed the services of a professional publicist (who would almost certainly have begged him not to do it) the excruciating embarrassment of the past few weeks could have been avoided.

 

Insulation from reality is, however, one of the besetting tribulations of great wealth. Ordinary folk must present a convincing case for spending millions of dollars. As a highly successful businessman, however, Craig possesses the resources to give his whims and fancies concrete expression. Had these been sound, he could have been another Michael Bloomberg. But, they were not – and he ended up in court.

 

In defending his reputation, the Taxpayers’ Union founder, Jordan Williams, has simultaneously driven a stake through Craig’s political heart and mortally wounded the Conservative Party. Over the weeks of Williams’ defamation action, the nation has looked on, in head-shaking disbelief, as a grown man has been forced to acknowledge, under oath, behaviour that would embarrass a spotty adolescent.

 

Day after day the public has been treated to example after example of Craig’s appalling judgement. New Zealand voters are prepared to cut politicians a great deal of slack when it comes to the sins of the flesh (just ask Shane Jones!) but they will not forgive a consistent pattern of bad decision-making. We expect our leaders to make informed and sensible political choices. We do not expect them to thrust their hands into one avoidable fire after another and allow them to be burned black.

 

But even as they write him off as a passing political curiosity, New Zealanders will likely experience a twinge of sympathy for Craig. From the moment he entered the political arena in 2009, his endearing, almost childlike, faith in the democratic process has touched the hearts of many. Unfortunately, just like Tom Hanks’ character in the movie “Big”, Craig’s teenage-boy-in-a-man’s-body pursuit of godly goals has also been the source of considerable mirth.

 

Craig professed to be shocked by the “dirty politics” of his foes. It is astonishing that he took so long to realise that there is no other kind. He knows that now. In the words of the inimitable American humourist, Mark Twain: “A man who carries a cat by the tail learns something he can learn in no other way.”

 

This essay was originally posted on the Stuff website on Friday, 30 September 2016.

Standing For Something

Mephistopheles In A Savile Row Suit: Lynton Crosby (of the infamous Crosby/Textor firm of right-wing political consultants) conducts a master-class on behalf of the Patchwork Foundation. Crosby's catch-phrase "When in doubt - stand for something" is one the Left would do well to ponder.

 

“WHEN IN DOUBT, stand for something.” So says Lynton Crosby, the man who, according to the UK’s Guardian newspaper, “really won the election for the Tories”. On the face of it, Mr Crosby’s catchphrase appears to be a statement of the bleeding, bloody obvious. But, the fact that he has had to reiterate it again and again over the course of his long and highly successful career as a political campaign adviser, strongly suggests that to a great many people in politics the need to “stand for something” isn’t obvious at all.

 

An old friend of mine, a Labour Party activist in Glasgow – God help him – was railing at me about the shallowness of the Scottish National Party’s (SNP) candidates and their paucity of policy. He’d just witnessed good Labour MPs, who had stood by their constituents through the bitter years of Thatcherism, wiped out by callow youths barely old enough to shave. It wasn’t right. It simply shouldn’t have happened.

 

But what did Labour stand for? That was the question which so many of Scottish Labour’s former supporters could no longer answer. It’s why so many of them voted for the SNP. Because the Nationalists unquestionably stood for something. Not just for independence – although that was hugely important – but for the sort of society that more and more Scots have come to believe only independence can bring.

 

Crucially, for my embittered friend in Glasgow, that’s the society which Labour’s founding heroes – like the Scotsman, Keir Hardie – promised to build. The society that Tony Blair effectively cancelled when he persuaded the Labour Party to remove the in/famous  “Clause IV” from its constitution.

 

Clause IV had promised:

 

To secure for the workers by hand or by brain the full fruits of their industry and the most equitable distribution thereof that may be possible upon the basis of the common ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange, and the best obtainable system of popular administration and control of each industry or service.

 

That’s what Labour used to stand for. That’s what hundreds of thousands of Scots believe a party of the working-class should still stand for. That Labour no longer stands for anything remotely resembling Clause IV is why the SNP’s derisive nickname “Red Tories” was able to wreak such historic havoc upon the electoral map of Scotland.

 

After defining what they stand for, the next thing Lynton Crosby advises his conservative clients to do is attempt to define what their opponents stand for. The effectiveness of this strategy may be seen in the way Labour’s democratic socialist objectives have been made to stand for (at best) union tyranny and gross inefficiency, or (at worst) secret policemen and concentration camps.

 

“The socialist objectives of Clause IV confuse ends with means,” the Blairites helpfully parroted throughout the early 1990s, “the triumph of Labour’s values cannot be secured by the methods of the now defunct Eastern Bloc.” As if the UK’s welfare state, its National Health Service (NHS) and nationalised industries were in any way comparable to the totalitarian Stalinist regime of the Soviet Union. As if the privatisation of the UK’s water supply and railway network has been a roaring success. As if the hollowing-out of the NHS (under both Conservative and Labour governments) has made Britons healthier or happier.

 

What, then, do the Tories stand for? Supplying a politically persuasive answer to this, the most important of questions, is how Lynton Crosby really earns his money. The most truthful answer: the Conservative Party stands for the untrammelled right of those already in possession of wealth and power to make and acquire more; would not play well with “the man down there on the corner waiting for the bus”. Even so, Mr Crosby’s and his ilk’s description of Conservative aims and objectives is only slightly altered.

 

What contemporary conservatism stands for is the right of persons possessing the requisite energy and talent to acquire wealth and power without unwarranted obstruction or restriction. In a funny sort of way, this formulation is not so very far from “Old Labour’s” promise to “secure for the workers by hand or by brain the full fruits of their industry.” The difference, of course, is that the Tories expect the workers to secure these on their own.

 

Labour used to be feared by the people the Conservative Party represents because it stood ready to expose this “you can make it on your own” mantra for the cruel con it has always been. That Labour was so easily defeated in England and Scotland last Friday is almost entirely due to the fact that it no longer offers workers any answer except “make it on your own”.

 

That is Mr Crosby’s greatest triumph: not only helping the Tories to remember what they stand for; but making Labour forget.

 

This essay was originally published in The Press of Tuesday, 12 May 2015.

The Sound Of One Hand Smacking

The 87 Percent Solution: Few subjects have lent themselves so readily to the arousal of popular passions as the so-called "anti-smacking" crusade. Colin Craig and his Conservative Party are attempting to harness that emotion and ride it into Parliament.

 

YOU HAVE TO WONDER if, in the weeks since Colin Craig made his interesting observations about astronauts and the Moon, he hasn’t gotten some professional help. Because his latest stunt – to raise again the fraught subject of child discipline – is nothing short of brilliant.

 

Over the past couple of decades few subjects have lent themselves so readily to the arousal of popular passions as the so-called “anti-smacking” crusade. There’s something about the crusaders’ arguments against corporal punishment that gets right under the skin of “the average Kiwi parent”. And, equally, there’s something about “the average Kiwi parent’s” willingness to use the phrases “hitting your kids” and “good parenting” in the same sentence that drives the crusaders’ absolutely bonkers.

 

Given that most of the anti-smacking crusaders are staunch supporters of the Green and Labour parties, inciting them to launch yet another assault on the child-rearing practices of ordinary New Zealanders makes perfect sense – if your purpose is to push Colin Craig’s Conservative Party over the 5 percent MMP threshold.

 

Of course, it’s entirely possible that Mr Craig is acting entirely alone. There has always been a peculiarly guileless quality to the man: a weird “what-you-see-is-what-you-get” honesty that is every bit as attractive as it is off-putting.

 

His ready admission that he still smacks his 8-year-old daughter is a case in point.

 

Only an adviser of Crosby-Textor’s sophistication would have the sheer Machiavellian gall to suggest that a political leader own up to the belief that it is perfectly acceptable for citizens to pick and choose which laws they obey and which they ignore. A party which openly acknowledges its ambition to join the nation’s legislators is generally expected to demonstrate (and usually does display) a little more respect for the Rule of Law.

 

It is, however, a crucial element of Mr Craig’s naïve political genius to instinctively “get” that the anti-smacking legislation owes nothing at all to the will of the people and everything to the unshakeable convictions of a self-righteous minority. Those who bridle at this characterisation would no doubt also dismiss the judgement of the 87.4 percent of voters who in 2009 answered “No.” to the Citizens Initiated Referendum question: “Should a smack as part of good parental correction be a criminal offence in New Zealand?”

 

Mr Craig’s argument is that any law passed in such studied contempt of public opinion has no legitimate claim upon the ordinary citizen’s compliance. Accordingly, he plans to make its repeal a “bottom line” should the Conservatives end up holding the balance of power following this year’s general election:

 

“It would be an easy one for National to put over the line", says Mr Craig, "because obviously the law is not working. Child abuse statistics have risen. It’s a silly law. The vast majority of parents think this law has gone too far.”

 

The big challenge for Labour and the Greens is to demonstrate an equally sophisticated grasp of the political dynamics of the “anti-smacking” debate as Mr Craig (acting either alone or in response to professional advice) has shown.

 

They must resist the temptation to re-litigate the political arguments of 2007-08. Instead they must hold firmly to this thought: “The best way to keep children safe from parental brutalisation is to win the election.”

 

Let Mr Craig knock himself out on the smacking issue. There are a whole host of important things to talk about with voters besides the anti-smacking legislation: inequality; inadequate incomes; child poverty; affordable housing.

 

The Labour-Green strategy must be to coax the non-voters of 2008 and 2011 out of their political alienation; their belief that the political class simply doesn’t give a toss for their opinions. Both parties need to “get” that nothing demonstrates the “truth” of elite indifference better than the “anti-smacking” bill.

 

Why else would Mr Craig’s Conservatives be thrusting it back into public consciousness?

 

If Labour and the Greens cannot persuade alienated voters that someone other than Colin Craig’s Conservatives is listening to them, then the Left will lose.

 

This essay was originally published in The Dominion Post, The Waikato Times, The Taranaki Daily News, The Timaru Herald, The Otago Daily Times and The Greymouth Star of Friday, 17 January 2014.

Colin Craig's Conservatives: A Noxious Political Potpourri

Me, Myself, I: If Colin Craig's Conservative Party was a book we'd call it a vanity publication. The question New Zealanders need to be asking the National Party is: "Why is this country's second oldest political party contemplating an alliance with the purpose-built political vehicle of a disturbingly reactionary millionaire?"

IF THE CONSERVATIVE PARTY was a book we’d call it a vanity publication. Born of successful Auckland businessman’s, Colin Craig’s, decision to enter politics, it was never meant to be anything more than a reliable vehicle for its creator’s messianic ambitions.

 

At the 2011 General Election Mr Craig’s Conservatives outspent the Labour Party by more than $100,000. In spite of this lavish expenditure ($1.8 million!) the party garnered just 59,237 votes (2.7 percent). Putting that another way: Mr Craig and his followers spent a staggering $13.71 for every Conservative Party vote!

 

Now, in normal circumstances, that information would probably have been filed under “A fool and his money are soon parted”. But in the political circumstances of 2013, Mr Craig’s 2.7 percent of the Party Vote is not so easily dismissed.

 

Not when the Prime Minister, John Key, fears losing the 2014 election because his government’s current support parties attract insufficient support to carry him across the finish line. What the Prime Minister needs is a new support party – one with considerably more electoral energy than the largely spent political forces currently keeping him in office.

 

Enter, Stage Right, the Conservative Party. If Mr Craig could somehow be assured of winning an electorate seat, he would, on current polling figures, bring with him up to four additional MPs. These would more than compensate for any decline in the parliamentary contingents of Act, United Future and the Maori Party.

 

Small wonder, then, that over the past week or so the Prime Minister has been doing his best to talk-up Mr Craig’s self-published electoral book. If enough “punters out there in Punterland” (as his predecessor, Dr Don Brash, dubbed the electorate) can be persuaded to vote Conservative, Mr Key’s electoral bacon may yet he saved.

 

This prime-ministerial promotion of Colin Craig raises a number of disturbing questions about the health of New Zealand’s democracy. Not the least of these is why a responsible Prime Minister, the leader of one of New Zealand’s oldest political parties, would make the slightest effort to encourage Mr Craig’s political ambitions?

 

The Conservative Party is Mr Craig’s personal creation, and like the creations of the Christian God he worships, it bears a more than passing resemblance to its maker. Now, were Mr Craig blessed with the wisdom of Jehovah that would be no bad thing, but, alas, Mr Craig is very far from being the fount of all wisdom. On the contrary, both he and his party present an amalgam of some of the least respectable political ideas on offer.

 

It is Mr Craig’s view that parents should be at liberty to assault their own children. That all citizens should possess firearms and be entitled to use them with deadly effect against intruders. That our daughters are the most promiscuous in the world. That anthropogenic global warming is neither a significant, nor even likely, cause of climate change. That homosexual attraction is a matter of personal choice. The list, lamentably, goes on and on. A noxious political potpourri uplifted from the more disreputable elements of the American Religious Right.

 

Why would a responsible, twenty-first century New Zealand prime minister have anything to do with a person whose political philosophy is so antiquated that calling it “medieval” would pay it an unwarranted compliment?

 

Were the Conservative Party the legitimate offspring of New Zealand’s long-standing conservative traditions; and were it peopled by ordinary, decent defenders of the values and institutions upon which New Zealand was founded and which have underpinned her prosperity, then the prospect of it entering into a workable political alliance with the National Party’s nascent liberalism would not be in the least bit daunting.

 

But the Prime Minister knows that Colin Craig’s Conservative Party is no such thing. Indeed, if Mr Craig is to be believed, his creation isn’t really intended to conduct itself as a political party at all. The Conservatives’ role, rather, is to facilitate government by binding citizens’ initiated referenda.

 

Can it really be the case that the National Party is contemplating an electoral alliance, and even entering into a governing coalition, with the vanity project of a man who is seriously advocating the abolition of our representative form of government and its replacement with the crudest form of plebiscitary democracy?

 

Has Mr Key not asked himself why Mr Craig favours government by referendum? Does he not see that it is by such means that the Conservative leader hopes to erect a system which renders impotent all the virtues of parliamentary discussion and debate; all the persuasive power of social and scientific research; all the sage advice and collective wisdom of the many interest groups and institutions that comprise our pluralistic society?

 

Mr Craig’s Conservatives intend to bring our representative democracy to book. The book which Mr Craig has written, unaided and alone.

 

This essay was originally published in The Press of Tuesday, 26 November 2013.