Politics round-up

Matt McCarten labels the last week as a great week for Labour, and is hoping for many more.

The SST tries its best to talk up the nonsense about Bill English plotting a coup against John Key, but English is 100% unequivocal:

English told the Sunday Star-Times he was happy to flag the possibility of being leader for the rest of his political career and he would never challenge Key for the job: “No ifs, no buts, no maybes.”

But the SST continues to attempt to cause problems for National, with Hager and Hubbard reporting on rumours that Don Brash could be appointed High Commissioner to London if National wins.

Key discussed giving Brash the top job in either London or Washington when he replaced him as party leader in 2006. Since then this has firmed into Key planning, if elected, to offer Brash a three-year posting as high commissioner to London, a position that costs the taxpayer about $600,000 a year.

Here is where you can tell the SST is trying to make the story as negative as possible for National. Instead of reporting on the salary for the job which is $130 to $170k they report on the total cost of having a High Commissioner in London, as $600,000 sounds better than under $130,000.

Only later on, do they report the salary. The $600,000 is a meaningless figure unless the SST thinks NZ should do away with having a High Commissioner. There is a difference between salary and work related costs.

As for the substance of the story, I refer people to my previous post on Government appointments of politically connected persons. It is all about quality and quantity.