Monday, August 08, 2005
Prime Television has axed the nightly Holmes current affairs programme, saying it will air for the final time tonight at 6pm.
Was David Lange one of New Zealand's greatest prime ministers, as the Sunday Star-Times claims?
To me, he comes across as a sad - and now lonely - individual. He left behind his Methodist upbringing and rejected any coherent basis for morality. He left behind his wife, despite knowing he had made a vow for life, and took up with his speech-writer.
He became a man with flexible morals, a schoolboy charm, who elevated playground taunts to an art form. He was the Labour Party Quip, keeping the faithful (and unfaithful) in line with his wisecracks.
He was apparently great because he could make people laugh. I would say that of Bob Hope or Danny Kaye. I would expect more than laughter from a great politician. We would not say of Winston Churchill that he could make people laugh, even though his acid wit was no less than Lange's.
Of a great politician, we expect great politics, and Lange's biography reveals that great politics - even less great statesmanship - was totally off the agenda in the back-stabbing ideologically driven government that he presided over.
In his memoirs published this week, David Lange attacks his Cabinet colleagues as 'terrible', accuses Helen Clark of staying silent over Rogernomics and reveals he snubbed Mike Moore because he did not trust him.
How many great policies can you point to that Lange inspired? He was ambivalent at best about Rogernomics, and utterly opposed to it at the finish.
Lange was hailed as a great orator. An orator should inspire us with a vision of something greater than ourselves. So what was the great vision that he inspired in people? Our nuclear-free policy? Michael Bassett reveals that the policy was not Lange's idea - he was even having serious second thoughts about it, but was railroaded into it by caucus colleagues who were the real authors of it, and who dealt behind his back in every conceivable way. (Lange says, by way of retaliation, that Bassett was venomous in Cabinet.) Lange's legacy in foreign affairs, therefore, was the dismantling of the ANZUS alliance, and providing the justification for downgrading our armed forces.
There was one Lange policy which did merit acclamation - and strangely today it is the policy which gets him the least credit. That was Tomorrow's Schools, which almost began to deliver us a decent education system. But the current government has done its best to dismantle those reforms, so Lange's memory will not be immortalised there.
The words that for me most sum up the life of David Lange and his colleagues come from T.S. Eliot:
We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats' feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar
Shape without form, shade without colour,
Paralysed force, gesture without motion.....
The Great Morality Debate. Says Michael Laws: There is no morality. The concept is simply an excuse for situational ethics. Might I suggest a new order that is grounded in the permissive rather than the negative? First, anyone should be allowed to do anything. Second, you are allowed to respond and retaliate to the cruelty of others. Third, lying is acceptable. Fourth, good intent is not what is good for me. Fifth, one should be generous.
But if you think Laws is bad, watch the bottom of the barrel being well and truly scaped by Bridget Saunders.
Rosemary McLeod points out exactly where the Laws and Saunders kind of morality has got us.
Dr James Dobson has compared experiments that involve the willful destruction of human embryos to experiments Nazi doctors conducted on Jewish concentration camp inmates during World War II.
How to have an early mid-life crisis: Many young men, aged 25 to 44, are racked with anxiety in their quest to secure a better home, job and perfect family life, a Mintel survey in the UK has shown. The survey of almost 2,000 men in May found that one in seven in this age group regularly worried about stress, work and job security, compared with one in ten across all ages. Mintel consumer research manager Angela Hughes said "The key problem is their over-ambitious aspirations." Psychologist John Rowan said that younger men were chasing "four holidays", "designer clothes" and a "high-earning job", but these are "a substitute for the real thing, which is an inner happiness".
China is seeing "an unexpected upsurge in Christianity" through lay evangelists like Beijing beauty salon owner Xun Jinzhen, the UK Daily Telegraph reports. Mr Xun says he "introduced 40 people to the church last year". Despite the eruption of materialism in the wake of economic reform, large numbers are embracing Christianity. "City people have real problems and mental pain that they can’t resolve on their own," Mr Xun explains. "In the countryside, people are richer than before, but still have problems with their health and in family relationships." Despite an often heavy-handed approach to the church by local party leaders, underground churches are growing rapidly and said to have 80 or even 100 million members.
Meanwhile, black-led churches are at the forefront of the few areas of church growth in the UK, according to the Christian Research Association. In the last five years black-led church membership has grown 18 per cent compared to a five per cent drop for churches overall. And the participation of African and Caribbean Christians across the churches accounts for 7 per cent of worshippers nationally, although the Afro-Caribbean population is only 2 per cent of the nation.
Thousands of iPod users have been downloading sermons from a church in rural Suffolk. The small congregation at St Nicholas in Wrentham originally developed its website so that housebound worshippers could access the sermons at home. But the sermons were devoured by over 2,000 users the moment they re-engineered the audio stream to put them on iTunes. The response was so great that Revd Leonard Payne had to change servers to cope with demand. Mr Payne said he hoped the technology will build contact with those who are "believers rather than belongers".
The latest TV1-Colmar Brunton poll puts Labour on 45% and National on 41%.
Some observations:
1) On the surface, it looks like the election is becoming a two-horse race. Labour and National between them totalled 86% in the latest poll, the highest of any poll this year. The minor parties between them could manage only 12%. In the past 3 MMP elections, the highest total for the two major parties was 69%. Are we essentially going back to a FPP style election, with the minor parties being squeezed out? Even on a worst-case scenario, not entirely, as NZ First, the Maori Party, Progressive and United Future are all virtually guaranteed at least one electorate seat each, which will put a minimum of 10 minor party seats into Parliament (probably more). So even if Labour held on to 45% of the party vote, they would still not be able to govern alone. And if the Greens don't reach the 5% threshold, as they are not likely to win an electorate seat, Labour could lose its strongest ally.
2) But is it really a two-horse race? There are several contradictory things going on, which make it very hard to read.
a) The minor party vote in the polls is definitely significantly lower than at the comparable time of previous elections, and while it will recover somewhat come election day, I doubt it will do so to the same extent as previously.
b) We are in danger of the polls becoming self-fulfilling prophecy. If people who would otherwise support minor parties become disheartened by the polls that there is any prospect for their party, they may well switch their vote to a major party.
c) But as I have noted previously, there is the giant unknown of the "don't knows" and the "not contactables". I do believe there is a significant constituency out there whose opinions are either not being polled, or who will not make up their mind until the last few days.
d) Consequently, I think the survey companies need to be asking themselves some hard questions about their polling methods.
3) This latter point is reinforced when you compare the results from the various survey companies. In the May and July polls, for instance, there was a variation of seven percentage points between the highest and lowest figures for Labour, and March was almost as large. The polls are not becoming more consistent as the election approaches.
Herald-Digipoll generally tracks highest for Labour and lowest for National (except for their June poll).
NBR consistently tracks lowest for Labour, and highest for NZ First and the Greens.
TV1-Colmar Brunton has been a mixed bag for Labour. It started out the year hunting in the middle of the pack for Labour, but then moved to the highest for several months. It has been in the middle-of-the road for National and NZ First but generally the lowest throughout the year for the Greens.
TNS-TV3 has been in the middle of the pack for Labour, NZ First and the Greens; started tracking highest for National in the early months of the year, but then switched to tracking lowest for National.
Was David Lange one of New Zealand's greatest prime ministers, as the Sunday Star-Times claims?
To me, he comes across as a sad - and now lonely - individual. He left behind his Methodist upbringing and rejected any coherent basis for morality. He left behind his wife, despite knowing he had made a vow for life, and took up with his speech-writer.
He became a man with flexible morals, a schoolboy charm, who elevated playground taunts to an art form. He was the Labour Party Quip, keeping the faithful (and unfaithful) in line with his wisecracks.
He was apparently great because he could make people laugh. I would say that of Bob Hope or Danny Kaye. I would expect more than laughter from a great politician. We would not say of Winston Churchill that he could make people laugh, even though his acid wit was no less than Lange's.
Of a great politician, we expect great politics, and Lange's biography reveals that great politics - even less great statesmanship - was totally off the agenda in the back-stabbing ideologically driven government that he presided over.
In his memoirs published this week, David Lange attacks his Cabinet colleagues as 'terrible', accuses Helen Clark of staying silent over Rogernomics and reveals he snubbed Mike Moore because he did not trust him.
How many great policies can you point to that Lange inspired? He was ambivalent at best about Rogernomics, and utterly opposed to it at the finish.
Lange was hailed as a great orator. An orator should inspire us with a vision of something greater than ourselves. So what was the great vision that he inspired in people? Our nuclear-free policy? Michael Bassett reveals that the policy was not Lange's idea - he was even having serious second thoughts about it, but was railroaded into it by caucus colleagues who were the real authors of it, and who dealt behind his back in every conceivable way. (Lange says, by way of retaliation, that Bassett was venomous in Cabinet.) Lange's legacy in foreign affairs, therefore, was the dismantling of the ANZUS alliance, and providing the justification for downgrading our armed forces.
There was one Lange policy which did merit acclamation - and strangely today it is the policy which gets him the least credit. That was Tomorrow's Schools, which almost began to deliver us a decent education system. But the current government has done its best to dismantle those reforms, so Lange's memory will not be immortalised there.
The words that for me most sum up the life of David Lange and his colleagues come from T.S. Eliot:
We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats' feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar
Shape without form, shade without colour,
Paralysed force, gesture without motion.....
The Great Morality Debate. Says Michael Laws: There is no morality. The concept is simply an excuse for situational ethics. Might I suggest a new order that is grounded in the permissive rather than the negative? First, anyone should be allowed to do anything. Second, you are allowed to respond and retaliate to the cruelty of others. Third, lying is acceptable. Fourth, good intent is not what is good for me. Fifth, one should be generous.
But if you think Laws is bad, watch the bottom of the barrel being well and truly scaped by Bridget Saunders.
Rosemary McLeod points out exactly where the Laws and Saunders kind of morality has got us.
Dr James Dobson has compared experiments that involve the willful destruction of human embryos to experiments Nazi doctors conducted on Jewish concentration camp inmates during World War II.
How to have an early mid-life crisis: Many young men, aged 25 to 44, are racked with anxiety in their quest to secure a better home, job and perfect family life, a Mintel survey in the UK has shown. The survey of almost 2,000 men in May found that one in seven in this age group regularly worried about stress, work and job security, compared with one in ten across all ages. Mintel consumer research manager Angela Hughes said "The key problem is their over-ambitious aspirations." Psychologist John Rowan said that younger men were chasing "four holidays", "designer clothes" and a "high-earning job", but these are "a substitute for the real thing, which is an inner happiness".
China is seeing "an unexpected upsurge in Christianity" through lay evangelists like Beijing beauty salon owner Xun Jinzhen, the UK Daily Telegraph reports. Mr Xun says he "introduced 40 people to the church last year". Despite the eruption of materialism in the wake of economic reform, large numbers are embracing Christianity. "City people have real problems and mental pain that they can’t resolve on their own," Mr Xun explains. "In the countryside, people are richer than before, but still have problems with their health and in family relationships." Despite an often heavy-handed approach to the church by local party leaders, underground churches are growing rapidly and said to have 80 or even 100 million members.
Meanwhile, black-led churches are at the forefront of the few areas of church growth in the UK, according to the Christian Research Association. In the last five years black-led church membership has grown 18 per cent compared to a five per cent drop for churches overall. And the participation of African and Caribbean Christians across the churches accounts for 7 per cent of worshippers nationally, although the Afro-Caribbean population is only 2 per cent of the nation.
Thousands of iPod users have been downloading sermons from a church in rural Suffolk. The small congregation at St Nicholas in Wrentham originally developed its website so that housebound worshippers could access the sermons at home. But the sermons were devoured by over 2,000 users the moment they re-engineered the audio stream to put them on iTunes. The response was so great that Revd Leonard Payne had to change servers to cope with demand. Mr Payne said he hoped the technology will build contact with those who are "believers rather than belongers".
The latest TV1-Colmar Brunton poll puts Labour on 45% and National on 41%.
Some observations:
1) On the surface, it looks like the election is becoming a two-horse race. Labour and National between them totalled 86% in the latest poll, the highest of any poll this year. The minor parties between them could manage only 12%. In the past 3 MMP elections, the highest total for the two major parties was 69%. Are we essentially going back to a FPP style election, with the minor parties being squeezed out? Even on a worst-case scenario, not entirely, as NZ First, the Maori Party, Progressive and United Future are all virtually guaranteed at least one electorate seat each, which will put a minimum of 10 minor party seats into Parliament (probably more). So even if Labour held on to 45% of the party vote, they would still not be able to govern alone. And if the Greens don't reach the 5% threshold, as they are not likely to win an electorate seat, Labour could lose its strongest ally.
2) But is it really a two-horse race? There are several contradictory things going on, which make it very hard to read.
a) The minor party vote in the polls is definitely significantly lower than at the comparable time of previous elections, and while it will recover somewhat come election day, I doubt it will do so to the same extent as previously.
b) We are in danger of the polls becoming self-fulfilling prophecy. If people who would otherwise support minor parties become disheartened by the polls that there is any prospect for their party, they may well switch their vote to a major party.
c) But as I have noted previously, there is the giant unknown of the "don't knows" and the "not contactables". I do believe there is a significant constituency out there whose opinions are either not being polled, or who will not make up their mind until the last few days.
d) Consequently, I think the survey companies need to be asking themselves some hard questions about their polling methods.
3) This latter point is reinforced when you compare the results from the various survey companies. In the May and July polls, for instance, there was a variation of seven percentage points between the highest and lowest figures for Labour, and March was almost as large. The polls are not becoming more consistent as the election approaches.
Herald-Digipoll generally tracks highest for Labour and lowest for National (except for their June poll).
NBR consistently tracks lowest for Labour, and highest for NZ First and the Greens.
TV1-Colmar Brunton has been a mixed bag for Labour. It started out the year hunting in the middle of the pack for Labour, but then moved to the highest for several months. It has been in the middle-of-the road for National and NZ First but generally the lowest throughout the year for the Greens.
TNS-TV3 has been in the middle of the pack for Labour, NZ First and the Greens; started tracking highest for National in the early months of the year, but then switched to tracking lowest for National.
