Gordon Campbell - Latest News [Page 1]
On How The US Supreme Court Is Undermining American Democracy
Wednesday, 28 October 2020, 9:20 am | Gordon Campbell
If Joe Biden is elected President next week, here comes the bad news. If Biden tries to defend Obamacare, combat climate change (via say, a variant of the Green New Deal) or tries to improve the access of US women to abortion services , he will run afoul ... More >>
On Why Herd Immunity Isn’t A Valid Option, And What’s With Our Reluctance To Wear Masks ?
Friday, 23 October 2020, 10:58 am | Gordon Campbell
Herd immunity has recently bounced back into the headlines as a tool for managing Covid-19, and as a supposed alternative to lockdowns. In the US, a group of scientists was recently brought together in the town of Great Barrington, Massachusetts by a ... More >>
On National Being Shafted By Its Own Creation
Wednesday, 21 October 2020, 11:10 am | Gordon Campbell
As it licks its wounds, let’s hope the National Party can still find time to look back with some pride at what it has achieved in Epsom. The Act Party’s nationwide success on Saturday night has been a tribute to National’s foresight, and to its ... More >>
On Why The Greens Shouldn’t Join The Government
Monday, 19 October 2020, 9:49 am | Gordon Campbell
We know she’s a miracle worker, but can Jacinda Ardern really find a cure for capitalism? Tough job. Especially when Ardern is being expected to fix the effects of capitalism – child poverty, unaffordable housing, social inequality – without ... More >>
On Some Electorates To Watch On Saturday Night
Friday, 16 October 2020, 11:54 am | Gordon Campbell
On the eve of Election Day, Judith Collins can claim that she has done exactly what she was chosen to do: namely, she looks like she’ll save some of National’s caucus furniture. The party may currently be polling in the low 30s, but under Simon Bridges ... More >>
On National Going Rogue, And US Militia Madness
Wednesday, 14 October 2020, 10:26 am | Gordon Campbell
In the wake of Judith Collins descent into negative politicking, the real question has to be – did she slip, or did she jump? Was it tiredness, or desperation, or both? As Werewolf has been arguing from the outset, Collins’ campaign has been ... More >>
On Flirting With Act, And On The Euthanasia/cannabis Measures
Tuesday, 13 October 2020, 11:05 am | Gordon Campbell
Less than convincingly, Judith Collins says that if elected to govern, she would not be enacting any of the austerity measures and welfare cuts advocated by her Act Party partner. Yeah, sure. Because the National Party that hand-wrapped and gifted ... More >>
On Why Sport Just Doesn’t Seem To Be So Important During A Pandemic
Friday, 9 October 2020, 10:56 am | Gordon Campbell
During a pandemic, what role does sport play? That question suddently looks more complicated than it had first seemed. Back during the first lockdown an audience starved for sport had seemed willing to watch any game anywhere featuring a ball ... More >>
On Last Night’s Debate, And Beyond
Wednesday, 7 October 2020, 10:47 am | Gordon Campbell
It really hasn’t been a good week for Judith Collins to be wheeling out her Little Me impression of Donald Trump, yet the similarities have been striking. There’s been (a) the need to project an image of strength above all else (b) the interruption ... More >>
On Four-year Terms Of Parliament, And On How The US Courts Are Dismantling Democracy
Monday, 5 October 2020, 12:58 pm | Gordon Campbell
Last week, the issue of four-year parliamentary terms surfaced again. Infuriatingly, it is being discussed purely in terms of its convenience for political parties. They’d get so much more time to enact their policies, free of scrutiny or sanction by voters ... More >>
On Debates As Game-shows, And Why Mixing Politics And Religion Is A Bad Idea
Friday, 2 October 2020, 11:58 am | Gordon Campbell
Political debates have dominated the week’s campaign cycle, here and elsewhere. Routinely, leaders’ debates ( and polls) are the roadside diners and comfort stops on the otherwise featureless landscape of an election campaign. They’re useful ... More >>
On The SFO’s Investigation Of New Zealand First
Wednesday, 30 September 2020, 10:55 am | Gordon Campbell
On one level. New Zealand First has been the agent of its own misfortune. The New Zealand First Foundation handling the donations at the centre of the Serious Fraud Office investigation was reportedly (a) authorised by the NZF party’s board More >>
On Whether This Election Is Already A Foregone Conclusion
Monday, 28 September 2020, 11:21 am | Gordon Campbell
Currently, this election looks like being a no contest. The weekend’s Newshub poll has the centre left enjoying a roughly 57-36% lead over the centre right. Labour is on 50.1% and the Greens 6.5%, while National remains in the dreaded 20s at 29.6% More >>
On National’s Rampant Pandering To The Farming Vote
Friday, 25 September 2020, 11:26 am | Gordon Campbell
What on earth has happened to the political parties n the centre-right? Once upon a time in the US, the party of Lincoln was a respectable political party before it devolved into the cult of Trump. Here at home, the National Parry used to be able ... More >>
On Last Night’s Leaders Debate
Wednesday, 23 September 2020, 10:05 am | Gordon Campbell
Do political debates change voter intentions, and cause voters to switch sides? According to a 2019 Harvard Business School study conducted across 61 elections in nine countries involving 172,000 respondents, the answer would seem to be a resounding ... More >>
On That $4 Billion Hit To National’s Economic Cred
Monday, 21 September 2020, 11:04 am | Gordon Campbell
National released its economic and tax policy last Friday. Weirdly, the plan was announced right at the end of the news week, when whatever impact it managed to generate would be likely to dissipate over the weekend. Well…. that now seems all for the ... More >>
On Tourism’s Endless Sense Of Grievance
Thursday, 17 September 2020, 11:37 am | Gordon Campbell
Sad that a once in a century pandemic should have come along before the government had a clearly thought out plan for rescuing all the firms and saving all the jobs in the tourism sector. Sad that the government now looks like it was making up the ... More >>
On The TransTasman Tinkering With Covid-related Poverty
Tuesday, 15 September 2020, 11:04 am | Gordon Campbell
On September 25, the government’s Covid-19 rent freeze will expire. A fortnight ago, the Commerce Commission (in response to a complaint) sent out a letter warning landlords not to continue trying to reach a a consensus on social media as to what ... More >>
On Campaign Politicking
Friday, 11 September 2020, 12:28 pm | Gordon Campbell
The microdoses of policy that get released on the campaign trail are not meant to be ego-shattering psychedelic events that transform our concepts of political reality. They’re meant to merely tickle the pleasure and pain lobes. Thus it was with the ... More >>
On Saving Small Firms, And Disowning Peter Thiel
Wednesday, 9 September 2020, 10:59 am | Gordon Campbell
According to Business NZ, over 97% of New Zealand firms employ only 20 or fewer staff. One of the political myths about such firms is that they’re forever groaning under the yoke of excessive regulation, with the dead weight of compliance all but ... More >>
