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The other country with a newly elected ethnic minority leader

Sunday, November 09, 2008
Is New Zealand, where our Kiwi kin have elected John Key's National Party into power, and consigned the coiffure-challenged Helen Clark to the dustbin of history.

John Key is Jewish, if not enormously practicing (apparently), and with NZ's Jewish community amounting to about 5000 souls, he is rather more of a minority than a certain president elect elsewhere in the Anglosphere. Turns out this is not a first for our NZ friends, as they have had two Jewish Prime Ministers previously.

Incidentally, can anyone tell me when Jewish folk were airbrushed out of ethnic minority status in these parts? I have heard / read repeated references to the 15 ethnic minority Westminster MPs, a figure which clearly excludes Jewish parliamentarians.

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posted by Croydonian

What would William Rhodes-Moorhouse think?

Wednesday, September 03, 2008
He, as I have just discovered, is a Kiwi-linked VC holder and the first person to win a VC for courage in the air. More here.

Anyway, this is what has come to pass in New Zealand:

"The navy is finding it difficult to sail, the airforce to fly and the army would struggle to take part in combat, the 2007/2008 Defence Force annual report revealed today".

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posted by Croydonian

Lèse majesté in the Antipodes

Sunday, July 06, 2008
The indignities Her Maj has to suffer:

"New Zealand shopkeepers are being fleeced by fake 100 dollar notes featuring a sheep wearing a tiara in the place where Queen Elizabeth's portrait should be. Police said the notes, which all bear the same serial number, were crude forgeries but some merchants in Rodney, near Auckland, where they were circulating, were taken in".

And here is the note in question:


Nice that even the criminal element wants to honour the national mammal. The moustachioed fellow is Ernest Rutherford, by the way.

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posted by Croydonian

Londongrad and Helengrad

Tuesday, June 03, 2008
News from the Antipodes:

"Helen Clark today turned her fire on National's refusal to reveal its major policies after the three latest polls showed Labour trailing badly.

The Prime Minister claimed the polls would not show the true level of Government support until the National Party had revealed its policies and said how it would pay for them." Source.

At the risk of being thought a cynic, doesn't that particular play smack of how our own dear Labour party responds to opinion poll slippage. Might the Dour One or one of his homunculi be counselling the besieged Socialist Tsarina of New Zealand?

Mind you, they would break out the fair trade champagne at Victoria Street if they were registering 36% in the polls.



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posted by Croydonian

Leadership - an object lesson from New Zealand

Monday, February 18, 2008
"New Zealand would neither recognise nor not recognise an independent Kosovo, Prime Minister Helen Clark said today". I am *not* making this up.

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posted by Croydonian

How to lose friends...

Friday, January 18, 2008
In a typically well thought out move, Buck House has decided that it cannot be bothered to send any of the cast of the national soap opera to attend the funeral of the national hero of one of the nations Betty S-C-G reigns over.

And lo and behold, our Kiwi friends know an insult when they see one, and it is the front page of one of the NZ dailies:

"Buckingham Palace has decided not to send a member of the royal family to Sir Edmund Hillary's funeral in what will be seen as a snub to one of the country's greatest legends".

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posted by Croydonian

An active citizenry

Monday, October 08, 2007
A fairly hum-drum story of drunk driving from New Zealand, admittedly involving a 17 year *12* times over the legal limit for someone of his age, but notable for what it says about policing, social responsibility and the like:

"Members of the public followed the driver and called police. Eventually they boxed him in with their cars, giving him little option but to pull over. A couple of members of the public quickly approached the car, pulled the driver from the wheel and held him until police arrived shortly after".

"Acting Sergeant Mike Owen of the Western Bay of Plenty Alcohol Group (I'm not making his job title up)...praised the public for intervening to prevent a tragedy on the roads".

What are the chances that Britons would have intervened under comparable circumstances, still more that they would not then have been charged with assault, false imprisonment etc and roundly criticised by violating this silly boy's 'human rights'?

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posted by Croydonian

Rumbling from the Kiwis

Thursday, September 27, 2007
Care of the graphic arts department at the New Zealand Herald, here is the Helen Clark approved design for a Union Flag-less flag for New Zealand kin:



A bit lopsided, isn't it?

Mind you, it is better than some of the other horrors on offer:


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posted by Croydonian

Hollywood Babylon, Nashville Babylon and now Wellington Babylon

Friday, September 21, 2007
Yes, amazingly enough our kin in New Zealand have been up to all sorts of debauchery, apparently:

"A book touted as a tell-all about New Zealand's media and celebrity industry has been gagged, just as printed and bound editions were poised to hit the shelves...News of the book's conception had sent ripples through the often-intertwined media and celebrity circles, whose secrets [former women's magazines editor Wendyl] Nissen was often privy to".

Who would have thought of it....

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posted by Croydonian

A Kiwi Tony Martin. Only without the complications.

Wednesday, August 15, 2007
Tony Martin, it might be recalled, used lethal force in defence of property, although there did seem to be elements of entrapment / retribution. Nevertheless, much of the nation was outraged that he ended up in the Big House for taking the law into his own hands failing the catastrophic failure of Norfolk's 'Finest' to do anything to protect his life and property.

Anyway, if that was bad, what of this from the Antipodes:

"Waikato police say they do not yet know if they will charge a farmer who fired two warning shots over the heads of two men he caught allegedly stealing petrol from his Morrinsville farm".

The New Zealand Herald has more details, but the core of the story is the possibility that a very mild exercise in force in defence of property could render the farmer liable to prosecution. So what should he have done? Handed his keys etc to the criminals, and then called from a payphone in order to let them thieve in peace?

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posted by Croydonian

Memo to Mr Tony - try reading the Australasian press

Monday, February 05, 2007
Because there you will find headlines like this:

"Labor in strongest electoral position since 2001". (The Australian)

And "Opinion poll puts Labour in front by three points" (NZ Herald).

I am rather unimpressed with the opinions of our Antipodean friends at the moment, frankly.

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posted by Croydonian