The way the New Zealand media have carried on in the past two years is an abject disgrace. They’ve become the Government’s lickspittles and poodles. They have failed to hold the Government to account, while vigorously attacking the opposition at every opportunity.
They’ve lapped up leaks from a bitter Simon Bridges, whose ham-fisted coup failed without even a vote. But that hasn’t deterred his pals in the media continuing to use the poison he hasn’t ever stopped dripping into their ears.
For weeks we had Mark Mitchell‘s breakfast buddy, Claire Trevett, writing disparaging comments about every leader who wasn’t Simon Bridges, and then the day after Chris Luxon was elected unopposed by National’s caucus, we get this nonsense from Jo Moir of Newsroom:
Collins and her supporters’ votes weren’t needed by Luxon because a contest never took place.
Bridges withdrawing from the race took away Collins’ power on that front – he will consider it a bonus that he managed to screw her leverage on his way out.
Newsroom
Only someone who gets her stories from pillow-talk or someone desperately stupid would make a claim like that.
That’s like Judith Collins saying “You’re not invited to the party Simon” and him replying “I never wanted to go anyway, so there”. Bridges withdrew because his ego wouldn’t have coped with a 23:10 loss.
Sorry, Jo, because Judith and her supporters were already supporting Luxon they removed Bridges from the equation. Bridges didn’t screw her, it was the other way around. Judith screwed him, and a mighty fine job of it too.
Bridges is still obviously leaking after this from Richard Harman, another happy conduit for Bridges’ poison:
National’s new leader, Christopher Luxon, wouldn’t confirm it, but sources close to Simon Bridges were late yesterday claiming he would be the party’s new finance spokesperson and would be ranked at three in the Caucus.
The implication was that was the price Luxon paid to have Bridges withdraw from the leadership contest after a meeting with him yesterday morning.
Politik
It is hard to take these chumps seriously when Bridges couldn’t even convince 10 of his pals to support him. What we are now hearing are the mutterings of the rump of the old nasties that were fostered and bred under the malign influence of Bill English.
Chris Luxon was right when he said that National had turned a page. The pity is these lazy and inept MPs still think they are relevant. They aren’t and they should be encouraged to disappear, otherwise they are just going to keep white-anting the leader, which is their modus operandi.
Equally sickening is watching those who were clearly backing Bridges now sicking up and posting pictures of them with Luxon, all grinning like they are best pals.
What the media have missed, is that apart from Mark Mitchell, Paul Goldsmith, Tim van der Molen and Simeon Brown, most of National’s MPs remember just how nasty and hostile a Bridges leadership was when he worked in cahoots with Paula Bennett to literally drive one of their MPs to attempt suicide. The majority want to return to that like they want Covid.
And when his case is being pushed hard by rabid far left hate speech bloggers then you know that his case is forlorn.
Of course while all this has been going on the media have ignored the ramming through of divisive laws to actively discriminate against people and have begun to run wedding stories to try to take the gloss off National’s new leader.
The National’s caucus would do well to remember that the media are not their friends. They are in fact an unelected branch of the Labour party and their implacable enemies.
The media are now laughing stocks as a result of selling out for $55 million and are a lock for Labour. They should be mocked mercilessly, especially when they produce stories like the two I’ve highlighted.
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