I buy a newspaper on the weekend as it is about the only one the stable produces that has something of journalistic substance to it. The weekday one often resembles a reincarnation of the NZ Truth which was aiming at a particular market. The paper I’m referring to is, I thought, supposed to aim its content at those with a certain level of intelligence, eg readers of The BFD. However, during the week the content seems more aimed at the level of Ministers of the Crown. It probably competes for space on their desks with the equally rubbishy Dom Post.
But I digress…
Lizzie Marvelly’s weekly opinion piece gets a cursory glance at the headline and more often than not fails to grab my attention. Last weekend that was the case except I ruminated on it and decided to return to her musings. Her headline was – Bridges stance on homeless beggars belief. The initial thrust of her article was that Simon Bridges wanted to take beggars to court. She reasoned that clogging up the courts with such people was a pointless exercise because if a fine was imposed, they wouldn’t be able to pay it. Fair comment and who could disagree.
Once I had recovered from the shock of realising that I was in agreement with Lizzie, I thought this can’t be right. A little more in-depth thinking of the BFD type brought me to the right conclusion: it wasn’t. What beggars belief is that if Lizzie had done the same, she would have woken up to the fact that there is more than one type of beggar. Or maybe not. The beggar Lizzie was referring to was the person who is vulnerable and often has mental health issues. I would sincerely hope that was not the beggar that Simon had in mind. Also on the streets are the professional beggars, those who either prefer not to work, are too lazy to register with WINZ, or who are topping up their welfare handouts. The type that clog up shop doorways ruining the prospects of those actually working to make a living. I assume this is the type of person Simon was referring to.
It beggars belief that people like Lizzie who represent the Left, only ever look at the side of a topic that suits their nasty narrative. She goes on to talk about the Housing First policy National introduced and points out that the Party website says they intend to expand on it. It’s a shame that memo wasn’t passed onto their Leader she writes. What sort of a silly comment is that? That is the introduction to more criticism of National, this time on their law and order stance. Her comments here are in line with her crim hugging friends in the Labour Party. According to Lizzie this is the National Party reverting to its old tricks. Pardon my ignorance, I didn’t realise getting tough on gangs and crime was some sort of trick.
Lizzie says the National Party increasingly appears to be ultra-conservative, hard, uncompromising (DON’T WE ALL WISH) and, in her view and in the polls, going backwards. Poor Lizzie, wrong again if the Colmar Brunton poll on Monday night is to be believed. Lizzie continues with her expert analysis. It’s the party of yesteryear, and it’s taking its gloves off to ready itself for a bloody, nasty fight to cling to relevance in 2020. She says National will become irrelevant with Millenials and Gen Z voters.
Not so, dear Lizzie. Most young people, maybe not yourself, mature and so do their thought processes as they take on more responsibility with families etc. I use radio as an analogy. When you’re young you listen to music stations but later, as your life changes, your preference becomes more akin to Newstalk ZB. If this did not occur ZB would be out of business, rather than, as it has been for many decades, the top rating station. The same applies to politics and the National Party. Lizzie, as much as we on The BFD criticise them, somewhat justifiably, hell would freeze over before we voted for your incompetent lot.
It beggars belief that the Left don’t seem to realise that their tunnel vision approach prevents them from seeing the bigger picture. Or maybe they’re the people of yesteryear, still working with a slide projector rather than a smart TV.