Making shit up
Stuff reports:
He also used his speech to accuse the Government of snubbing a convention that invitations were not issued for a royal visit during an election year.
He believed Prime Minister John Key would invite the royal family to bring “its newest and cutest member here for a long series of photo ops in an election year”, Cunliffe said, referring to Prince William, wife Kate and their baby George.
Cunliffe has just invented this convention. The convention is not to have visits during or close to election campaigns. Rather silly to invent a fake convention and then accuse John Key of planning to break this fake mythical convention.
Based on some quick research, here are the previous royal visits which have occurred in election years:
- 1954, QEII
- 1963 QEII
- 1981 QEII
- 1990, QEII, Prince Edward and Princess Royal
- 2002, QEII
When you devote a proportion of your speech to attacking the PM for breaking a non-existent convention, then I guess it just means you din’t have much of substance to say.