New Zealand Conservative

I thought, having covered the Conservative Party launch BBQ, that I would do a post-election interview with the party leader Colin Craig. I did this and found him to be very pleased with the election result. Sure the party would have liked to make it into parliament, but they showed that they have far more support than four of the parties who did make it in. Craig stated, “with our result we passed the creditably hurdle,” and for a party that was only four months old they did have something to prove. Where other minor parties were created and headed by ex-MPs from already established parties the Conservative party lacked such a pedigree, which lead to many seeing them as a wasted vote. Yet now, although they did not get in this time, some political commentators have said post-election there is a voter base and room for the Conservatives on the right. With the seeming decline of the ACT party the Conservatives might be a rising power in New Zealand politics. Discussing the points of th...

Expanding on two of Andrei’s links in Today’s Election Campaign Coverage , which I think reveal deeper issues about honesty in the election and the possible rise of extremism in New Zealand politics. “Goff Turns the Worm” It seems Goff, or at least Labour, really was turning the worm. The worm panel was meant to be made up of undecided voters to give an unbiased impression about the impact of the speeches by both leaders. BUT as shown by Kiwi Blog it seems that a number of Labour activists and diehards were part of the worm panel, no doubt cranking it up to high for Goff and turning it down low for Key. This was also picked up by the Whale Oil blog who managed to get a copy of the email used by Roy Morgan research to gather panel members. The Roy Morgan email as quoted from that website: “Hi Everyone, We are inviting people to attend the TV3 leaders debate on 21st November in the studio in Eden Terrace. I have blind copied this email to ensure your privacy. We are putting ...

The NZ Conservative Blog looks at the Conservative Party We here at the NZ Conservative blog would like to start out by saying we predate the Conservative Party by many years, indeed it is only 3 months old at this point of time. In no way is the blog associated with the political party. Over a week ago I went to the Conservative Party BBQ, which passed as their party's campaign launch, and while I was there I got to use my new found press credentials to talk to the candidates including an interview with Colin Craig himself. The Conservative Party BBQ attracted around 300 people from around the country was heavily attended by party candidates standing in electorates (the party is standing in around 54 of the 63 general electorates). The Candidates I got the chance to talk to many of the candidates, so many in fact names and electorates were getting hard to remember. Frank, standing for East Mangere, highlighted the diversity of the party with people from all ages and et...

“The great struggle of our times is between realism and ideology…” In no other time in history has this maxim been more true. In a time when human knowledge has been expanding at an incredible rate, new frontiers open up and we use our imaginations to see what might be. This is of course what the imagination is for: it creates ideas, it is crucial for human development both as individuals and as a species. The imagination allows us to project our thoughts beyond our current reality to predict, run scenarios or just good old fashion escapism. But the imagination always needs to be brought back to reality when used for practical matters otherwise the results can be dire. The man who sees things that are not there is insane- to live in the imagination is madness; rather mental illness or ideology. There is an order to things: a reality, truth. Ideologies are based on truths but once the world is viewed through a narrow lens people’s views get distorted, their practices become disordered. ...