Shane Jones quits

[BoyWonder]

Holy crap Shane Jones has jumped the sinking ship!

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/ar...ectid=11242350

[Ab]

Shane Jones takes the option that doesn't involve having to campaign or, you know, work. In other news sky found to be blue.

[CCS]

Jumped or pushed?

[Ab]

The Labour Party can't stand Jones. The sisterhood have never forgiven him for the porn videos episode because porn is rape. He's a masculine hetero male with a business background who supports mineral exploration. He's a great speaker and has done nothing but make his Leader look like an ineffectual limpdick all year. Through his "Aussie supermarkets" campaign Jones is - was - the only senior Labour MP to get positive media attention and look like he was doing anything for the country.

Jones was Labour's strongest performer and was Labour's strongest connection to the Maori community. His departure isn't a surprise, but if he was pushed out that's Labour reaching a whole new level of retarded muppetry.

[BoyWonder]

I doubt he was pushed - he's smart enough to know that once Cunliffe was on the spot and stumbling that he was better off looking out for himself. His campaign against the supermarkets was the perfect last impression in the public eye.

[Rince]

Originally Posted by BoyWonder

I doubt he was pushed - he's smart enough to know that once Cunliffe was on the spot and stumbling that he was better off looking out for himself. His campaign against the supermarkets was the perfect last impression in the public eye.

+1 insightful

[fixed_truth]

I think Jones was a bit of a double edged sword.

On the one hand he was all about himself (and hence why "the leadership has a bit to do with his leaving), inconsistent in his performance (since the leadership challenge he has been awesome), and generally disruptive to Labour trying to look unified. But on the other hand this play by my own rules say what I wanna say image appealed to some people and so I reckon there will be an initial few points drop in the polls for Labour. Will be interesting to see how Kelvin Davis goes.

[Ab]

Commentary from various perspectives.

Armstrong in the Herald:

Shane Jones' shock decision to quit as a Labour MP will lead voters to draw one conclusion and one conclusion only: that he thinks Labour cannot win the September general election.

His departure is close to an unmitigated disaster for Labour. For starters, unlike the bulk of his colleagues, Jones could reach into segments of the vote - especially blue-collar males - who have switched off Labour. He was in the process of switching those traditional relationships back on.

He was a major weapon in helping Labour to win back more of the Maori seats.

Perhaps of most significance, Labour has lost the one man who would have acted as the essential go-between in securing Winston Peters' signature on a post-election coalition or co-operation agreement between Labour and New Zealand First which enabled Labour to govern.

Jones, however, may have seen himself ending up as a paralysed economic development minister in a Labour-Greens coalition which saw him having to constantly battle on behalf of any project with environmental repercussions.

Godfery at his blog:

Shane was socialised into politics off the back of, for lack of a better term, the old left. His introduction to Parliament and the Beehive was while working for Geoffrey Palmer in the fourth Labour government. He would've been a better fit - ideologically - in the Maori Party. He might've had a more successful career in National.

This meant he was neither perfect for Maori nor perfect for the left. (But perfection is a false chalice, yet that didn’t stop many from demanding it). The attacks against women were uncalled for and wrong. The struggle for gender equality shouldn't and can't be divorced from the struggle for ethnic equality. Equality works best when it's equality for the whole and not the parts.

I think many of Shane’s Maori supporters were always willing to recognise that. Yet his opponents rarely acknowledged his significance for Maori and in Maori political history. His place in Maori politics and Maori history was ignored. That was a telling signal to Maori - a people who revere the past and always try to fit their thinking in it. Shane worked because he understood this. He knew what made Maori tick, though it was always undermined by the faults of his political line.

But what was worse – and very neo-colonialist – was being told to wait for someone better. That moment had too much in common with when the radical left realised tino rangatiratanga meant ownership and then Maori suddenly became the new bourgeois. I’ve said it before: Maori politics doesn’t sit apart from the political spectrum, but below it. At least the political right doesn't pretend to be a false friend.

Maori political history isn't rich with choice. Telling us to wait for a more "progressive" candidate is deeply offensive. Maori have waited too long for too little. Shane was an opportunity and one many - including myself - were willing to back. He wasn’t perfect, but he was as close as we’ve come in more than a decade to the centre of power.

Danyl Mclauchlan at his blog:

Almost every senior (male) journalist who went out for beers with him walked away with the notion that ‘the Jones boy’ was going to be our first Maori Prime Minister. And I’ll admit he had a unique style: in a time where most political quotes are cooked up by anonymous staffers, Shane Jones spoke in a voice that was uniquely his own: an odd, nineteenth century mode that often referred to himself in the third person, peppered with latinate tags – just yesterday he denied that Hekia Parata was his ‘benefactrix’. The press gallery – with its usual acumen – decided that speaking like an eccentric Victorian-era Oxford don meant that Jonesy was ‘connecting with working class kiwis’. I never saw any evidence of this. Jones performed poorly as an electorate candidate during multiple elections: actual voters were never as impressed with him as the gallery were. During the Labour leadership campaign Jones’ support among Maori voters was only 37% – which strikes me as shockingly low, considering they’re being offered the chance to endorse a contender for first Maori Prime Minister. It reflects – I suspect – Jonsey’s incredibly low support among female voters across the board.

I guess this is ‘bad for Labour’. It makes them look weak and disorganised, and the gallery will run around wailing that Labour have just lost their brightest star. (I think they’ve lost an undisciplined, waffling misogynist who probably cost them more votes than he ever won.) And it’s good for Grant Robertson, obviously, who may now run for Labour leader unopposed after the election.

Something I've seen hinted at but not explicitly stated in any published article yet - if National made this happen they're fucking brilliant. Think of all the things that would have to come together.

Sir Wira Gardiner secretly donates to Jones's leadership campaign. Murray McCully informally sounds Jones out as to whether or not Jones really wants to spend another three years on the Opposition benches with a bunch of pakeha unionists, gay-rights activists, and tree-hugging hippies who hate him and hints that a high-level government job focused on Pacific economic development with a resources-slash-fisheries angle may soon be created if the right candidate could be found. Jones sees the writing on the hull and jumps from the sinking Good Ship Labour, which means that the next candidate off the Labour List gets tapped for a return to Parliament and oh ho ho guess who it is - Kelvin Davis. Kelvin Davis, a by-all-accounts bright talented hetero Maori male who got shafted by the sisterhood for being a bright talented hetero Maori male and who got given an embarrassingly low list position before the last election and who lost his job as a result. Being a lowly-ranked List MP who has already once been fucked by the party Kelvin Davis will feel like his hetero male testicles are on a table next to a pile of hammers unless he can win an electorate seat, and his home seat is oh ho ho it gets even better TAI TOKERAU. Which means to have any sort of job security Davis has to defeat Hone Harawira in an electorate race, which means Kelvin Davis has to knock the Mana Party and its parasite Kim Dotcom Party completely out of NZ politics and deprive the Labour Party of an entire coalition partner. Having a bright talented hetero Maori male running on the left in Tai Tokerau means that Harawira and Dotcom will be put under a fucking microscope during the election which is something I'm guessing neither of them want to happen. And this is all now a lot easier for Davis because he's now back in parliament because Shane Jones retired after being offered a job by Murray McCully, and being back in parliament means he gets to run this knock-off-Harawira Tai Tokerau electorate campaign with parliamentary funding.

Possible outcomes:

1. Kelvin Davis runs a good campaign with support from Labour and defeats Harawira in Tai Tokerau. Mana Party out of Parliament. National laughs.

2. Kelvin Davis loses Tai Tokerau when he gets hung out to dry AGAIN by Labour which gives him shitty support in his campaign because they want a possible coalition-partner party in Parliament more than they want a bright talented hetero Maori male on their own team. Labour thus confirms that it a) hates heterosexual males and b) hates Maoris all in one go, thus further pigeonholing itself as an extreme-left party. National laughs.

If McCully (and let's be honest, he wouldn't have done this himself, so let's include John Key) and National actually foresaw these possible outcomes and specifically targeted Jones in order to make them more likely, they have got serious game.

[Savage]

Game of Jones

[Ab]

Oh Jones will be Trotskified now. He'll be decried as a traitor, a secret National mole, he'll be getting cropped and airbrushed out of web images, videos will be getting deleted from youtube, you name it, we have always been at war with Shane Jones.

[Lightspeed]

Hahahah.

I personally favour the deep conspiracy angle. John Key has serious dirt on everyone thanks to NSA hookups. Labour is only allowed to softball it in parliament and the media, Shane Jones started pushing too hard so had to go.

That's totally it.

[Ab]

However it happened this is a colossal kick in the nuts for Labour. Their top-performing highest-profile best-speaking jobs-focused top Maori just quit. The ONLY positive that comes out of this for Labour is that Cunliffe won't be overshadowed by him any more.

[ZoSo]

Originally Posted by Ab

Oh Jones will be Trotskified now. He'll be decried as a traitor, a secret National mole, he'll be getting cropped and airbrushed out of web images, videos will be getting deleted from youtube, you name it, we have always been at war with Shane Jones.

The caring left.

[Ab]

Read and weep/laugh

http://thestandard.org.nz/shane-jone...ng-down-as-mp/

[CCS]

Jeez, National has been kinder to Jones in his departure than Labour has. National, caring deeply about the disadvantaged and about lowering unemployment, have even got Jones a job!

Thanks National! \o/

[StN]

Something was bugging me last week. Shane Jones and Judith Collins do a Thursday morning cross on Radio Live each week. Judith had just been ambushed the night before by a TV3/RadioLive reporter and confronted her about the China visit.

The next moring, she was very humble in her description of what happened, and her position. She was prime for Shane to issue a barrage - and he just sat strangely silent - let her have her say, and basically then said that he had been on that side of things and fully understood her current actions. In the house, Cunliff and his cronies were going to town on her. He didn't even make an utterance.

Just a month or so earlier there was a subtle insinuation from Shane (well, not so subtle) that Judith was spending nights at the mansion now owned by a Chinese interest - resulting in a very humble apology.

He knew who was buttering his bread.

[StN]

Originally Posted by Ab

I can't help but wonder - if Hekia Parata were not female and Maori, would she still have Education?

Originally Posted by StN

What does her husband do again..?

Originally Posted by Ab

Umm... he's on the board of Te Papa?

[Ab]

lol, shot

I just watched David Cunliffe get fucking destroyed on the Paul Henry Show and I couldn't help but think, oh jesus this guy either doesn't want to win or he and his team really have no clue.

This how you dress when you go on television and want people to think of you as a Prime Minister:



This is how you dress when you go on television and want people to think of you as a sloppy unprofessional creepy guy:



Was he on his way to a seventies party or something? Did the Leader of the Opposition really go on television dressed in a safari suit with an unbuttoned brown shirt?

[CCS]

*snigger*

Well, Goff started the whole 'shirt but no tie' thing for Labour leader, because he's such a man of the people. Shearer continued it but added a gat... Cunliffe... well, he can't play no guitar so he just has to show a lil' tuft of chest hair to show what a Dude he is. Dudely Dudeman Of The People.

[CCS]

Josie Pagani has some interesting things to say:

Warning to Labour; the heretic hunters are driving people away

There’s no problem finding other Labour party staffers and candidates who share the view that Labour needs fewer not more people on its side, and that it can define itself by throwing people out rather than bringing them in. These are the militants who make every issue, from man bans to building roads a litmus test, and if you fail - good riddance.

The viciousness of these heretic hunters is driving people out of the Labour party at a time when Labour needs all the votes it can get.

If you disagree with these policy police or attempt to debate an issue, you are not just an opponent - you’re an enemy within.
...
Today there is only one way to stop a calamity, and that is for genuine progressive to run towards the party and demand a focus on jobs, and higher wages, not on banning Nigella, or trucks, or roads, or whatever NGO the Labour party is trying to be this week.

Focus on what Labour is for, and stop being against every passing thing the government does. We want to hear more from people who celebrate New Zealanders and less from the heretic hunters who want to purge the party.

[Ab]

Pagani's already been unpersoned.

http://thestandard.org.nz/espinar-be...-the-standard/

[CCS]

Hilarious. It shows exactly why Pagani is right and also shows how fun it is to watch Labour eat itself.

[crocos]

A scary day has finally arrived: The Green Party is actually saner (albeit just) than Labour at the moment.

And that's not a reflection on how far the Greens have come, but how batshit crazy Labour has gone.

[CCS]

No, the greens are definitely still crazier than Labour. But Labour is far more dysfunctional than the greens.

[crocos]

OK, yes, that is a better way of putting it.

Nats want to lead us into a capitalist dystopia, Greens want to build a bridge to the South Island using cars as the building material, and Lab wants to beat itself up at the slightest excuse.

[Ab]

Originally Posted by crocos

Nats want to lead us into a capitalist dystopia

Dunno what indicators you're looking at, but NZ seems to be caning it by almost every measure at the moment.

[[Malks] Pixie]

Originally Posted by Ab

Dunno what indicators you're looking at, but NZ seems to be caning it by almost every measure at the moment.

I think his point is that the eventual outcome of any capitalist system is dystopic due to the way social structures become ordered.

Pixie

[Lightspeed]

Originally Posted by Ab

Dunno what indicators you're looking at, but NZ seems to be caning it by almost every measure at the moment.

Unless your measure is low/middle incomes.

Besides, most of our current success is historical momentum rather than anyone in current or recent leadership being particularly awesome.

[Ab]

Metiria Turei on Jones:

"It's probably a good thing that he's going, he's very much a 19th century man in a 21st century world, and I'm not sure he's going to cope with the changes that need to come," Turei said on Firstline.

"I think there's been real issues around with Shane and his sexism. I think the comments he's made and the very derogatory statements he's made about women in the past, in particular women in authority, has been a real problem."

She denied Jones had appeal to working class men.

"He's claiming he's got lots of support, but not enough that's kept him in Parliament. I don't know that he has a great deal of support in his caucus either because that hasn't kept him inside Parliament.

"At the end of the day, he's leaving. The Greens are staying. He won't be part of government, he won't be a minister and the Greens are intending to be so after the election on September 20," Turei said.

BOOM.

[BoyWonder]

Metiria Turia feels like one of Jones' shortcomings is that he is prone to letting his emotions get in the way, and I don't think anyone has even mentioned his jackets yet.

[pxpx]

Originally Posted by Lightspeed

Besides, most of our current success is historical momentum

please define "historical momentum", but maybe do it in the random politics thread.

[fixed_truth]

The Beatification of St Jonesy


Boom Boom Pow

[Golden Teapot]

Originally Posted by [Malks] Pixie

I think his point is that the eventual outcome of any capitalist system is dystopic due to the way social structures become ordered.

I suppose you need to define what elements of society would make it dystopic by your measure. It could be that others view the same outcomes as utopia. For example, I'd view very positively a situation where those that can contribute, have the opportunity to contribute, but choose to not contribute have next to nothing; others would view this very differently since they believe that everyone should have the same outcomes whether they contribute or not.

[[Malks] Pixie]

Originally Posted by Golden Teapot

I suppose you need to define what elements of society would make it dystopic by your measure. It could be that others view the same outcomes as utopia. For example, I'd view very positively a situation where those that can contribute, have the opportunity to contribute, but choose to not contribute have next to nothing; others would view this very differently since they believe that everyone should have the same outcomes whether they contribute or not.

Fair point - I've always understood the utopia/dystopia situation to be one of universals as opposed to being linked to individual subjectivities. As such the very idea of utopias and dystopias are quite ridiculous as we're never going to have a situation in which all individuals are contented.

My response was simply trying to decipher what was originally posted. Having said that if there was to be some sort of strict interpretation of a utopia I feel it would have to be grounded in how social relations become structured within a society.

Pixie