Chris Trotter

WHICH DITCH would you die in? Our MMP electoral system makes this an important political question. [...]

TRULY, THERE IS nothing new under the sun. The Coalition government’s big plans for vocational training are curiously reminiscent of Julius Vogel’s big plans for New Zealand’s universities – in 1874.

The socialist paradise they’d dreamed of ushering-in stood exposed for the nightmare it had always been. The Left’s “grand narrative”: of a revolutionary socialism advancing inexorably towards a globalised and stateless communism; was a busted flush. What was to be done?

Peters is assumed to have forfeited 90 percent of his conservative support. In response to this strategic error, all National believes it has to do is position itself as the only “genuine” conservative party, swallow-up NZ First’s right-wing support, and emerge sufficiently enlarged to govern alone.

Instead of the extraordinary displays of love and forgiveness, the nation’s television screens would have been filled with the faces of angry young Muslim men and women.