In bed with the Conservatives

My column in the NZ Herald is on the potential coalition partners for National in 2014, with most focus on the Conservatives:

But then came Craig’s comments on National’s plans to provide free contraceptives to women on a benefit. He said young New Zealand women were the most promiscuous in the world and that a monogamous 70 year old woman shouldn’t pay for a young woman to sleep around.

Mr Craig’s effective labelling of young New Zealand women as sluts was bad enough, but the lack of any recognition that it takes two to tango, and no condemnation of young promiscuous men outraged women (and men) from across the political spectrum. Twitter, as usual, was a source of equal mixtures of outrage and humour as one man tweeted they he for one “welcomes our new promiscuous women overlords”.

John Key himself came out and dissed the comments by Mr Craig. The next day he declared he was not opposed to gay marriage – something we can assume the Conservative Party is vehemently against. So even if the Conservatives can make it into Parliament, any relationship with National is likely to be rather stressful.

In summary there are not a lot of good options for National in terms of post 2014 partners, just a variety of “less bad” options. 

Sigh!