Spreading the Christmas cheer before he takes time off to finish his next book, Jon reviews 2008's stand-out political performances, for good and ill,
This is my last column for the time being as I have a book to finish. I have enjoyed the opportunity of writing for Pundit and believe Tim and Eleanor’s site has proven a quality addition to on-line punditry.
Cue harmonica: It looks like the more things change in parliament, the more they stay the same.
The first week of our new government has been highly instructive. Given nine years to think about its approach to governing, and given the same period to learn from Labour’s mistakes, National has begun its term in precisely the fashion Labour ended up being reviled for, the brute exercise of power.
Yes, the technology revolution has allowed many more people to participate in their democracy, but the most successful outgrowth of that revolution--the partisan political blog--does more to cloud than elucidate democratic discourse
The only way to start this column is by admitting I’m part of the problem, with the problem being defined as the sheer noise of democratic discourse in contemporary society complicating attempts at either moderation or leadership.
Jon wallows in sickly misery and nostalgia with Hunter S. Thompson as his only guide
I’ve had the dreaded lurgy for a week. Rugged up at home my companion has been Hunter S.
Jon dispenses with aroha to explore John Key's retrograde plan to restore knighthoods
There is plenty about our new government to analyse, not least the fragility of its two wings. We have a Maori Party claiming a mandate that far exceeds the fractiously stark reality of just how few Maori bothered to vote at the election and the party’s own inability to win all seven Maori seats.
Aroha flows from Jon's keyboard this morning, with love for politicians of many breeds
My New Year’s resolution was to show aroha towards the people who matter to me this year. It was always going to be a tough ask to sustain but some good things have happened to me so far in 2008, so for today I’d like to indulge myself a tad.
Jon damns the media coverage in this campaign, reviews the Clark era, and picks his standout moment of election night.
I wrote the following piece on Thursday last week and submitted it to the Sunday Star-Times the following morning. Despite a few anxious moments along the way there was no reason to change it on the night. I understand this piece was published in the Times' first edition but not its second, so for any who did not see it on Sunday I thought I'd reproduce it in full:
A quick, poetic word about yesterday's powerful uplift
There is so much to say, and no time to say it, so I wanted to at least offer readers a poem from Langston Hughes, penned during 1924 in a different America to the one we woke to this morning:
Jon makes the case for greater bi-partisanship between Labour and National and sets a challenge for Saturday night's winner
In 1992 James Carville, Bill Clinton’s chief strategist, wrote what turned out to be a winning campaign haiku. One of its lines read; ‘change versus more of the same.’ This, it seems to me, is the crux of this year’s tepid election campaign on our side of the Pacific.
Jon explores our democratic deficit, arguing that a democratic summit be convened irrespective of who wins power on Saturday
“A Government that does not know what to do
