Helped by a fawning media keen to vilify National’s Judith Collins and glorify David Seymour, the Act leader, the ‘it’ boy of the moment, is the male version of Ardern with the addition of brain power and pragmatism, but sits at the other end of the spectrum, which may be problematic for some if they don’t do their homework.
This is all fine for National, who can tolerate a (likeable) show off who won’t be straying to Ardern’s party of misfits any time soon and can be relied on for a coalition deal.
Pundits are falling over themselves to align themselves with the new media darling on the political scene. Commentator Jane Clifton says Seymour is “showing National how it’s done”. Yes, his comments make good copy and he is organised and quick off the mark. And apparently some new poll behind a paywall shows he is second choice for PM.
The latest Colmar Brunton poll was 4 months ago, 22-26 May. I would prefer to put my faith in a MSM poll for an up-to-date picture. Shall we see one any time soon, I wonder?
Seymour is a great communicator, like Ardern, but clever, rather than ideological, with it and not reverting to word salads, or ‘gibberish’ as Bob Jones describes Ardern’s style. He loves the spotlight and has amassed a fan base.
I am also a fan of his, given his ability to think on his feet in parliament and in a stand up, something Ardern struggles with. His speeches are brilliant but his voice can take on a drone like quality which he could work on to modulate his delivery.
He presents as a gentleman, shows respect even when under fire, can keep his cool and, like Dr Shane Reti, has never met a reporter he can’t get the better of. The media’s hatred of Collins means she struggles to get traction when everything she says is taken out of context, commentators going full retard and misleading the public to make their point.
Consider Janet Wilson in Stuff criticising Collins’s call for a completely warranted external inquiry into the terror attack when Ardern had completely shut down the ‘conversation’ and ‘moved us all along’. And her allegation that Collins called microbiologist Siouxsie Wiles fat: her own interpretation, completely untrue: think big fat Greek wedding, big fat lie, big fat hypocrite.
And then The NZ Herald’s Fran O’Sullivan and Claire Trevett’s hit job on Collins the day after the Countdown terror attack, to take the heat off Ardern, along with the continuing vicious cartoons of Collins and National (but none of Ardern), is just plain biased and dishonest. I could go on and on and on….
Seymour does have his moments when, perhaps buying the media’s PR that he is the real Opposition leader, his cry-baby side peeps through. National have more than 3 times as many seats as Act so he has a way to go before he can adopt that title, although polls show his star is rising. One hilarious example was earlier in the year he put a press release out to complain that National was ‘stealing his headlines’.
Seymour is too smart though to be drawn into conversations about being the real Opposition Leader by the likes of The Country’s Jamie Mackay, who, along with HDPA stupidly encouraged voters to vote Labour to keep out the Greens. All the little lemmings followed Ardern over the cliff.
Seymour cleverly sidestepped the real Opposition discussion by talking about polling trends, inching up for the right, rather than down for Labour, and emphasising like The Rolling Stones said, ‘Time is on my (our) side’
Hearing some Labour supporters saying they will vote for Act because they have fallen for David, is plain stupid if they are voting on policy; whilst Ardern is all for social justice introduced by stealth, along with race-based constitutional change and throwing money around like drunken sailors, Seymour is for watching every penny, being harsher on beneficiaries with welfare ‘a hand up’ (not a hand out) and other more austere (and innovative) policies.
Those who see him as a future PM may get buyer’s remorse once all the excitement is over after the next election if the right regain power, and find he is not quite as ‘kind’ as our current PM. They may be relieved to find that he is not the PM.
I am very happy if National has a coalition partner who will force them to introduce tougher measures to reduce beneficiary dependency and reluctance to work and like National has already indicated (but has been suffocated by the media’s agenda to make them irrelevant), make necessary reforms to the RMA not based on race, scrap He Puapua and Three Waters (which probably will be dead in the water before then due to Councils’ opposition).
This time a party’s pragmatic plans and polices must come before ‘personality’ if New Zealand is to survive. I will vote National no matter who is the leader because, like Act, the majority of their candidates will be head and shoulders above the reprobates currently running New Zealand into the ground.
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