Rob Hosking on National

Rob Hosking writes:

National leader Bill English unveiled his shadow cabinet yesterday, promising a tough time for the Labour-led government.

It is another new wrinkle the MMP system has thrown up: a parliament that is essentially going to be deadlocked.

There are already cries from government supporters that Mr English’s comments are mean and nasty, and his suggestion National is not there to make things smooth for the government is somehow dirty pool.

Yes one precious petal on Twitter is outraged that Bill English has said the Opposition isn’t there to make things easy for the Government. He has said this shows English isn’t a decent human beings or similar hysterics. He’s also been condemning me for my evil evil blog post where I propose National try to win votes off other political parties and push them under the threshold.

It is one manifestation of the Jacinda effect – and there certainly is such an effect – that the new prime minister’s supporters see any criticism or opposition as being an exhibition of nastiness rather than, you know, legitimate debate in a democracy.`

Yeah it is interesting some of them have such a sense of entitlement they thimk you opposition is in itself nasty and somehow dirty politics. Well they are going to have a lot of crying to do over the next few years as personally I’m ready and raring to go.

I will of course praise the Government when they do things I agree with. On some issues I will actively help and campaign for them – on issues such as abortion for example. But there will be many many ares where I will oppose them and do everything I can to stop some of their worse policies.