Winston’s motives
It is no coincidence that Winston’s extraordinary attack on Kiwi Muslims came amid a string of poll results showing his party bleeding support and losing its kingmaker position. If NZ First gains roughly the same amount of support as the Greens (as most of the last few polls have shown) and Labour maintains its support at just over 40%, then Winston will be shut out of Government. The kind of scenario that would see Winston shut out is the scenario served up by NBR’s poll this morning: Labour on 41% and the Greens on 7%. These two parties (perhaps with the help of Jim Anderton and Peter Dunne who could well be on their own in the new Parliament) would in this situation be able to form a government without Winston’s involvement. This should be the dream situation for both the centre-left and the centre-right parties: forming a government without Winston and his bigoted ways. A Labour-Green arrangement is a possibility that, on current polling, seems at least plausible. Unfortunately for Don Brash, he seems to have no viable alternative to the vitriol-spewing member from Tauranga.
July 31st, 2005 at 11:27 am
See http://nzcartoons.co.nz/cartoonist1.php?nist_id=24 for a good comment on Winnies trying to get the green vote. Evans, the cartoonist, was fired from the Herald for anti-Zionist cartoons.