Flip flop #9,087,425

Seems that John Key has done it again. Announced policy off-the-cuff and back-tracked later. TV3 reports that, speaking to an Auckland families forum yesterday, Key “veered away from a written speech … appearing to announce in off the cuff remarks that National would axe the commission.”

“He said there was “a ton of money being spent on it”, and he would rather give the money to non-government organisations delivering front-line services.”

Someone must have reminded him later that he might need the suport of Peter Dunne and the United Future Party, whose baby it is (its establishment was a key condition of the Party’s support agreement with Labour after the 2002 election).

Today we have the inevitable backtrack:

“… National would merely “rebalance” the commission and he expected United Future to find the changes acceptable. [Key] refused to comment on the details of National’s policy, but said there was still a place for advocacy for families somewhere in the bureaucracy.”

Inexperienced, muddled, duplicitous. For a righter future, vote National.

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Mr Sensible seeks partner

“For years, Dunne has been willing to hitch his little engine to whatever chain of wagons is available, before chugging off in whatever direction is most likely to deliver him the goods.”

Somewhat patronisingly, Gordon Campbell sums up Peter Dunne’s approach to the pursuit of power in introducing his interview with “Mr Common Sense & Reliable”.

I’d like to say it’s been fascinating watching Mr Middle of the Road’s progress through the years, but, well, he’s much too bland and sensible to be all that interesting. Winston Peters without attitude, you might say.

I was there at the beginning. In a fit of enthusiasm I can’t now explain, I attended all of the candidate meetings for the Labour nomination in Karori in 1983. There were some interesting candidates, including one said to be the designated head office choice. And then there was this awkward chap in a plain grey suit, strikingly ill-fitting and outsize shirt cuffs, odd hairstyling with a painfully earnest manner.

Who Shall Go to the Ball?

Watching the various small parties position themselves in recent weeks, the words “rats” and “sinking ship” come to mind. But as Matt McCarten points out in today’s HoS column, Labour may be partly to blame for its predicament.

Matt reminds us that after the last election Winston Peters and Peter Dunne refused to support a Labour-led government if the Greens were in it. He argues that this “set up the situation where Labour’s hegemony of the minor parties would ultimately fracture.” And so it seems to be coming to pass.