I'm not voting UKIP in the European elections

Why?

It said it was libertarian, it isn't, but that's not what's most important.

It campaigned on making immigration equal with all nations, then its leader singled out it being acceptable to "fear Romanians".

so despite the strong attraction to putting two fingers up the establishment, especially the utterly vile Labour, Liberal Democrat and Green parties, I'm going to vote Conservative.

I explain why on my UK blog.

Forgotten posts from the past: The lovers of violence on the NZ left

For a while I have read Maia's blog, partly out of curiosity and an attempt to understand the thought processes of someone on the left who, I tended to think, generally had a good heart. I've come to the conclusion that she is living in a world of naive delusion.

Some of those arrested on firearms charges in the Ureweras include her friends. However, like the rest of the so-called peace loving left, she refuses to condemn the evidence presented in the Dominion Post on its content. She wont say that it is wrong to advocate assassinating John Key or President Bush, or wrong to murder people for political ends, or wrong to vandalise power stations.

Maia rightfully is appalled by much violence, specifically rape. I don't disagree. However, why do so many on the left hold within them the anger and the moral belief that initiating force is justified against peaceful people? How can they look themselves in the face and condemn some violence, but not others?

Is it that, fundamentally, their politics are all about initiating violence against others to create the "just world" they seek?

After all, the Greens talk often about peace and non-violence, but their approach to almost all issues is to pass a law to ban something or make it compulsory.  Their approach to foreign policy is to turn a blind eye to atrocities committed by authoritarian governments that share their socialist philosophy.

How do they reconcile claims for being non-violent, but sympathy towards those who are, and advocacy of violence against peaceful people?

Forgotten posts from the past: Introducing the Airbus A380

The world's biggest airliner, the Airbus A380, has been creating some attention because of its sheer size. It is quite an achievement to build something so big that can fly with so many people.

Singapore Airlines will be the second airline to operate Airbus A380s to New Zealand

It promises to provide new advancements for passengers at the front (in first and business class), and maybe some modest improvements in seat width and pitch for those in cattle class - but for most it threatens long queues at bathrooms and enormous waits for luggage and checkin as 500 plus passengers fill departure lounges and the like. Airbus has made much of the ideas of onboard bars, casinos, shops and the like, but the truth is that most airlines will simply squeeze in more seats.

The A380 has been dogged by delays, partly due to Airbus not anticipating in its design the desire by most airlines to have sophisticated on demand in flight entertainment systems, and so wiring needed to be redesigned. There have also been problems meeting the promises on maximum weight, so the whole programme is behind by at least a year.

Nevertheless, Singapore Airlines was the first to fly the new whalejets, between Singapore and Sydney, and then London and Singapore. Air France announced its internal configuration for the A380. Air France is buying 12, with the first three arriving in 2009. However, Air France is promising nothing too exciting - with 538 seats.

The lower deck will have 9 first class and 343 economy class, with the upper deck carrying 80 business class and 106 more economy class seats.

Emirates has since announced its configurations. There will be three, ranging from a relatively spacious... to a tight .... heaven help you on the latter, which will probably be used for connections to and from India and Pakistan. The lower density ones are likely to operate towards east Asia, Australia and New Zealand. However, Emirates has announced nothing special, other than it will have the latest seating already installed on its newest 777s.

Emirates flys A380s 3x a day into Auckland

For New Zealanders, Singapore Airlines, Qantas and Emirates will offer the best chances to fly on the Airbus A380, but probably not directly for some time. Emirates is the only airline out of those likely to fly the A380 to Auckland on a regular basis, as an extension of services between Dubai and Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane.  

Certainly Air NZ has no routes consistently busy enough to justify buying the A380 in the near future.

All we know about Singapore Airlines is that its new business class (easily the best in the world and not seen on flights to NZ yet) will be seen on the A380, big wide seats that recline fully flat and not at an angle with the fuselage. Singapore Airlines is keeping what it does for economy and first class on the A380 under wraps. Others are doing the same, but it is clear Air France sees little need for the A380 to be a flagship for anything particularly special.

AND NOW

Forgotten posts from the past: Compulsory welfare - a quaint remnant of nationalism?

With the whole debate about welfare one question is rarely raised - why does compulsory state welfare only apply to the poor in your own country? Why are the poor in other countries less needy?

Now the obvious answer is that it would be unaffordable to tax everyone to pay for people in other countries to be relieved of poverty, then, in which case, as with anything that you fund, you prioritise.

What is more important, a family with a TV, bed, clothes, car and ample nutrition, or a starving family with nothing?

For to simply say it is "none of our business" you're admitting you're a nationalist.  Human beings not residing in the country you live in are a lower priority to you.

Don't get me wrong, I am not advocating a global taxpayer funded welfare system.  I don't advocate the state based one.

However, given it is the left that is the source of the welfare state and defender of it on moral grounds, on what moral grounds is there to give money to people who, by any measure, are better off than the vast majority of humanity?

Could it simply be that socialism is nationalist too?

and isn't that rather racist?

Chris Trotter: the Greens are the last hope for "we" ?

It is rare that a commentator on the left exposes so readily the fundamental difference in understanding and approach to politics as Chris Trotter most recently did in The Press.  In that article he posits almost exactly the narrative the Green Party would want you to understand - which is that the Greens, and only the Greens, are revolutionary and wise, and out for the good of the many, unlike the other parties out to sustain the status quo and the "counter narrative" of "neo-liberalism" - the pejorative term originating from the left, used to dismiss and debase any and all who promote capitalism.

The notion that the Greens are fighting a lonely vanguard in a fundamental struggle is understandably appealing to an aging Marxist, who has witnessed with almost endless bitter dismay, at the edifice of New Zealand's own - and dare I say carefully worded - national democratic socialism - crumble after it nearly bankrupted the country.  You see the autarchic, egalitarian, isolationist, "full employment" "golden age" Trotter harks back to, is reminiscent of the same sort of nationalist "golden ages" that autocrats all over the world point to.  An age that was destroyed by traitors to the cause, who "sold us out" to foreign capital.

Never fear, the Greens are here, because the new threat is global annihilation, and they alone are "dedicated to the practical application of ecological wisdom".  The "politics of ecological denial boasts some extremely powerful backers".

What untrammelled nonsense.   A ridiculously simple view that fits the intellect of someone who regards The Simpsons as a comprehensive social narrative, but one that doesn't actually fit facts.  It isn't Montgomery Burns vs. the people, as much as Trotter wishes it were.

Forgotten posts from the past: Nicky Hager's communist sympathies

Remember Nicky Hager?  Called "journalist" by so much of the NZ broadcast media, but who would be called at best an "activist" elsewhere, well hardline anti-communist activist Trevor Loudon has outed some of Nicky Hager's radical leftwing past. 

I started writing about him, but simply got bored.

It's well known Hager is the poor little rich boy, who has been able to avoid having a real job through his family's comfortable assets - accumulated through capitalism, which he has since spent much time criticising taking a fairly standard hard-left, anti-Western line politically.  Most recently being known for his book that claimed to be outing a "scandal" that the National Party hired consultants to assist in campaigning strategy.  The xenophobic boogie man that New Zealand voters were conned by lying politicians on the right - which stopped them voting for the parties that are really in their interests - i.e. the Greens.

Besides supporting the Sandinistas in Nicaragua (hey Helen Clark did too), he also was a key contact in the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament - a pro-Soviet organisation that largely lamblasted the US, UK and France for their nuclear arsenals, calling for unilateral disarmament by the West (but never expecting the USSR, nor China, to do so).   He allied himself with the late Stalinist Ron Smith.

Of course anything Hager utters should be seen in the light that he is just a political lobbyist, he is no more "investigative journalist" than any other activist, but a supporter of the Green Party and everything he produces is intended to further his political goals.   Therefore, you'd hope that when he next comes out with some "shock horror" probe into how awful some business, centre-right politician or Western power is, that a real journalist would ask him some probing questions and take a critical look at his work.

However, such journalists are literally the proverbial hen's teeth in New Zealand.

Does Nigel Farage love Vladimir Putin?

No.

However, it looks that way, and in politics that's almost all that matters.

He's made a blunder, in his venal hatred of the EU he's made it the scapegoat and the driving force for the revolution in Ukraine.

Unfortunately, he is wrong and hopefully he wont make the mistake again, as I write on my UK blog.

Crimea matters, for all sorts of reasons

I don't know what has appalled me more - Putin's cynical opportunistic land-grab of Crimea, the almost complete abrogation of the Budapest Memorandum on Security Guarantees for Ukraine by the UK and US, or the extent of leftwing and rightwing moral relativism about the whole thing.

I started by writing an article about how Crimea is what happens when isolationists are in charge.  However, the reaction of much of the public is not just the isolationism that has been bred by the left (the "the West is evil as as bad as anyone else" brigade) and the right ("we're safe, they aren't coming for us, just our friends, who we can ignore"), but the moral relativism attached to what is going on.

In this age of competing media, it is easy to turn on Kremlin propaganda in English from Russia Today, and for critics of the status quo on left and right to cynically dismiss reports from the plurality of Western media sources as propaganda, but it's naive and delusional.  What is going on in Ukraine is old-fashioned power politics, because Vladimir Putin has sniffed weakness from the West and knows it will do little - as long as Barack Obama is in power, David Cameron remains beholden to the appeasement loving Liberal Democrats and the Germans remain paralysed by their own history.

So let's first knock out some of the lazy assertions, promoted by Putin's regime:

So after all that

Dad was diagnosed as having terminal laryngeal cancer in April 2013 and was told he wouldn't see Christmas.

Well he did, and it was the biggest family Christmas we have had for a very long time.

I am not going to publish my eulogy to him on here.  He used to read this blog regularly and said I was bound to upset some people, but he enjoyed it.

So what I am going to say is to reflect on the dignified way he put up with the deterioration of his life and the inability of medical professionals he saw to treat his cancer.  

RIP Dad

and thank you

Islamist censorship is appeased in Britain

So in the past week or so in the UK:

- The Liberal Democrats are debating whether to suspend a Muslim Parliamentary candidate who tweeted a Jesus and Mo cartoon image saying he was not offended by it (and, according to his opponents, using "colourful" language to describe his Islamists opponents).

- Channel 4 and the BBC, both state-owned broadcasters, have refused to broadcast images of the said cartoon, in reporting the story (specifically showing the image with the depiction of Jesus, but concealing the depiction of Mohammed).  The reason given by the BBC was that it would be "gratuitously offensive" to some viewers, yet it was central to understanding what the fuss was about.

This is it...

More on this story here on my UK blog.

Meanwhile, George Galloway, fresh from spreading pro-north Korean propaganda on Russian propaganda channel, RT, is campaigning vehemently against the Liberal Democrat candidate.   There aren't words to describe the creature.

Even a few on the "liberal" left, which has shamefully appeased Islamist views for so long, is finally starting to wake up.

Free speech is under attack, and it is in the heart of the left liberal establishment that the challenge is happening, and they are shaking, shivering and fearful.

For there is no right to be protected from offence in a free society, and the fundamental problem is that the "liberal" left have pushed for laws to essentially do this.  To prohibit views that are offensive to many (and indeed to many libertarians and conservatives too), to seek to socially-engineer views, rather than confront them with debate, boycotts and voluntary action, but to use the state to shut them down.

The problem for them is that in creating this artificial construct, they have deemed it impossible for people of protected "oppressed" groups to be capable of committing the offences they created.  It is why it is politically impossible for many on the left to accept that people of non-European extraction can be racist, or that women can be sexist, or that the religious bigotry of non-Christians (or non-Jews) is a concern.  This doctrine is fed "protected oppressed group" identity students relentlessly, and is seen most recently in the "white privilege", "male privilege" slapdown, designed to shut down debate with a pejorative that implies you are not entitled to participate, because of your background.

Quite simply, until those of the "liberal" left eject this post-modernist collectivist identity politics fantasy, they cannot credibly take Islamists on.

So if those who proclaim opposition to racism, sexism, oppression of homosexuals and promotion of secularism cannot take on an ideology that is racist, sexist, oppresses homosexuality, oppresses any deviation from its religion, then their philosophical foundations are found wanting.

Holocaust Memorial Day 2014

Whilst there remains a state which actively promotes denial of the Holocaust.

Whilst much of the Muslim world, and more than a few in the former Soviet bloc, and some in the West continue to want to deny the horrors of Nazism, it needs to be re-emphasised.  For a toxic coalition of the gutter-white racists and the Islamist totalitarians, are keen to revive anti-semitism, and more than a few so-called liberals, turn a blind eye to the latter group in particular.

Never forget.

I said it in 2013.

For the Holocaust wasn't the angry lynching of a whole population in the rage of war, or the vile act of a small number of followers of some thug who went far too far, nor is it the act of a culture or civilisation that otherwise would be thought of as primitive.  

No, it was the act of a modern society, corrupted by the culture of virulent collectivist purging.   A technologically and artistically modern society, taken over by a totalitarian monster, that went from mere scapegoating through to a quiet, shameful, eliminationist policy, and did so with mechanical, mass-produced, efficiency - akin to the production lines invented by Henry Ford, who, of course, shared many of these views about the Jews.

and in 2008 I said:

"The utter complete dehumanisation of all those effectively declared "unpersons" by the Nazis remains a horror unparalleled in its comprehensive efficient single mindedness."

Remembering Ahmadinejad

(From 2008..)

Ahmadinejad's speech (yeah you would figure he'd say something ridiculous) had little coverage in the media. Maybe they are all tired of the Iranian holocaust denier's comments, but they shouldn't be.

His interview in Time Magazine had him say:

"As to the Holocaust, I just raised a few questions. And I didn't receive any answers to my questions. I said that during World War II, around 60 million were killed. All were human beings and had their own dignities. Why only 6 million? And if it had happened, then it is a historical event. Then why do they not allow independent research?

TIME: But massive research has been done.

AHMADINEJAD: They put in prison those who try to do research. About historical events everybody should be free to conduct research. Let's assume that it has taken place. Where did it take place?"

So Ahmadinejad continues his anti-semitic lunacy. His actual UN speech has some gems:

- the "passing of the era of agnostic philosophies".  In short, he believed the West is dominated by Christianity;

- he bemoans violence as a means of solving crises, he who led a regime that dished out violence in abundance;

- "Justice is about equal rights, the correct distribution of resources in the territories of different states". Chilling stuff, who decides what is correct?

- "The Islamic Revolution toppled a regime, which had been put in place through a coup, and supported by those who claim to be advocates of democracy and human rights, thwarted the aspirations of the nation for development and progress for 25 years through intimidation and torture of the populace and submission and subservience to outsiders." Irony no?  This regime that murders anyone who rejects the state religion, and flogs the victims of rape.

- "those who have actually used nuclear weapons, continue to produce, stockpile and extensively test such weapons, have used depleted uranium bombs and bullets against tens and perhaps hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, Kuwaitis, and even their own soldiers and those of their allies, afflicting them with incurable disease"  Extensively test nuclear weapons? Use bullets against tens of thousands of who?

- "After September 11, a particular radical group was accused of terrorist activities -- although it was never explained how such huge intelligence gathering and security organizations failed to prevent such an extensive and well planned operation."  9/11 conspiracist then?

- "In Palestine, a durable peace will be possible through justice, an end to discrimination and the occupation of Palestinian land, the return of all Palestinian refugees, and the establishment of a democratic Palestinian state with Al-Quds Al-Sharif as its capital."  Sure it will.   Bound to be a durable peace, after you've wiped out the "Zionist entity".

The Islamic Republic of Iran is a throwback, to the dark ages and is the antithesis of democracy and justice, denying anyone in the country who wishes to reject Islam, fundamental rights.

It ought to be ostracised across the Western world, universally condemned by secularists and advocates of human rights.  It is a land where individual freedom is subordinated to a theocratic dictatorship.

It's an utter disgrace that so many on the left, who are only too fast to jump on Christian conservatives, (often quite correctly), appease the beastly regime - because it fits into their visceral hatred of the United States - when, if they were living in Iran, virtually none of them would have the tolerant liberal views they express, tolerated at all.

World Economic Forum 2015 should be in Detroit

Instead of the "oh so nice" politeness towards the vile and the corrupt, and the pleasantries, and the parties and the delightful atmosphere of an expensive resort.

They should congregate in Detroit and actually talk economics.

Talk about how a wealthy city has decayed because of industries that got lazy and were hijacked by those who cared about "the workers" first, namely trade unions.

Talk about how a city completely dominated by one political party, became corrupt, bankrupt and fundamentally incapable of delivering the basic infrastructure it monopolised.

Talk about how a city maximised tax revenue to try to catch up with its declining population, and simply chased more business and more residents away, except those too poor and too dependent on welfare or crime to want to leave.

Talk about what happens when a city once known for being the centre of industry and entrepreneurial spirit, becomes dragged down by growing government.

and yes talk about how the same people with that political philosophy now think it is more important to build a tram line beside a half-empty road, rather than ensuring the emergency services can respond effectively.

Shifting the World Economic Forum away from the pristine location of Davos will avoid one criticism, that it is a party of the rich and famous, and just involves the self-styled "elite" talking to each other somewhere that is nice to visit anyway.

Then every year it should be in a city that needs economic transformation, that will teach lessons of economics, and will appreciate the massive injection of economic activity that such wealthy visitors bring.

Yangon for 2016, or Bangui, or Karachi?

Where is the so-called peace movement now?

The Times reported that the US Administration is claiming that the Syrian target hit by Israeli airstrikes in September 2007 was a nuclear reactor supplied by North Korea.

North Korea of course has developed nuclear weapons, in defiance of promises to the international community. It utters rhetoric constantly calling for death to the USA, Japan and south Korea. It has now been caught selling nuclear technology to Syria.

Syria is an enemy of Israel, sponsors terrorism, invaded and ran Lebanon as an extension of itself for years.

However, that doesn't matter.  

It isn't the United States, United Kingdom or any other Western liberal democratic state.  

It is basically a rule of thumb that if anti-Western autocracies engage in war-mongering, it doesn't get the so-called peace movement excited.  They excuse it because "well the USA has nuclear weapons", granting moral equivalency between a regime that brutally suppresses dissent and does not permit independent media or protests, and the relatively free West.

Update

On Syria it is more palpable.  The so-called "peace" movement happily rallies thousands to march against Western intervention in Syria, but never protest against Russian arming and assisting the Syrian regime, or Qatar or Saudi doing the same to the rebels.

No, you see "imperialism" is just ok for Arab states, Iran, Russia or indeed any country that doesn't share the political or cultural background of the Western world.

As it was in the Cold War, when the so-called "peace" movement constantly rallied against Western military spending and activity, and never protested the Soviet bloc, or China, is how it is today.

So-called "peace" activists are blind to militarism and violence from dictatorships that aren't allied to the West.  They are simply reconstructed anti-capitalist fans of violent revolution, and their self-styled calls for morality and peace are transparently vacuous.

Air NZ wins "airline rating" award, so what? UPDATED

It's simple fodder for New Zealand "reporters" - a company called Airline Ratings, which is self styled as "the world’s foremost safety and product rating website" awards Air NZ "airline of the year".

So what happens?  The company press release is substantively replicated on the NZ Herald, with little analysis, just an interview from Air NZ which of course is happy to use it as a marketing opportunity.

However, did anyone think to ask who the hell Airline Ratings is, and whether there is anything substantive about this rating?

I know my first reaction (and that of some people on frequent flyer forums) was "who the hell is this"?

The (last) pope got something right...

(originally 2006)

Now I didn't have much time for Pope Benedict XVI, as I am an atheist and oppose the church's obsession with controlling people's bodies, its fundamental sexism and inability to adequately confront those of its employees who have violently and sexually abused many. 

However, the Pope is a powerful man, one of the most important in Christianity. For all of the flaws of Christianity, precious few Christians engage in violence to gain converts - while many may be offended by media and statements that attack the religion, very few engage in angry rampages of violence and there are precious few examples of modern day Christian militia out to do violence (though they are not unknown in Africa). The time for that is past.

His speech at the University of Regensburg in 2006 has upset Muslims across the world - they are, matching the stereotype that is hardening in the non-Muslim world, by protesting angrily, making anti-American and anti-Israeli statements, burning effigies of the Pope - in other words, acting like uncivilised, brutalised deranged thugs.  Criticism is not taken as a reason to offer rhetoric or reason in return, but anger and violence.

They have acted exactly the way that the Pope rejected. In his speech he said:

"Faith is born of the soul, not the body. Whoever would lead someone to faith needs the ability to speak well and to reason properly, without violence and threats… To convince a reasonable soul, one does not need a strong arm, or weapons of any kind, or any other means of threatening a person with death"

It is a lesson many Christians have taken, but which far too many Muslims have not.  They seek to enforce their religion with threats and violence, treating the mind as irrelevant, not seeking to convince with arguments based on merits, but on fear.

That is the fundamental difference today, that is oft-ignored by all too many, especially on the so-called progressive left.

In many Muslim countries, choosing to reject Islam (which you are assumed to have been born with) is a crime.  The last known execution for heresy of a Christian was in 1826 in Spain.  No non-Muslim majority countries have laws restricting religion.

So when Muslims wonder why their religion appears "singled out", then they need only look at the behaviour of their fellow believers. 

It isn't Christians, Jews or atheists that people fear waging violence int he name of religion. It isn't apparent in most Muslim countries that there is tolerance for those of other religions or no religion.

Anyone who thinks that the appropriate response to those who don't share their views is to threaten them with violence, is uncivilised and barbaric.  

Unfortunately for Muslims, it is people of their religion who far too often undertake this behaviour.  

They have every right to hold uncivilised barbaric views of others, but when they cross the line to threaten violence against those they disagree with, they should reasonably expect the full force of the law.

The right to religion is a right to practice your own beliefs - it is not a right to force others to submit to them, or to protect you from being offended.

Obesity - the Greens want to parent you

From 2006

The Green Party is supporting the Health Select Committee's inquiry into obesity and type 2 diabetes today. Of course MPs inquiring into obesity are the blind leading the blind, or as David Farrar puts it “like asking Black Power to inquire into gang violence”

Sue “ban or make it compulsory” Kedgley said “If we are serious about reducing the risks of obesity we have to find ways of reducing the overwhelming pressure on children to eat unhealthy food.”

We do have two ways, one is called PARENTS, increasingly incapable of deciding their children's diet, school and television viewing, the other is social pressure. What is more powerful that seeing how unpopular it is to be overweight, especially for girls? It can be cruel and soul destroying to be teased about your weight - and this in itself can have a profound effect (and also worsen it, by kids using food as a crutch).

The fundamental philosophical difference here is between:

1. Those who believe that obesity is a personal responsibility of people who eat too much and exercise insufficiently, and of parents of children who do the same; and

2. Those who believe that people are too stupid and incapable of choosing healthy food and exercise, and get seduced by big mean corporations “forcing” them to buy those things that they “can’t help but buy”.

Obesity in most cases is about making bad choices. Nobody makes you go to McDonalds instead of a fruit store. Nobody makes you buy ice cream instead of salad.

The Greens will want to tax what they see as bad choices, which are not bad if you eat them in moderation – this simply gives nanny state more of your money to spend on what the Greens want. The Greens also think that manufacturers of sweet or high fat foods are morally wrong – and should not be allowed to advertise their products when and where they wish (despite some reports from Sweden that have shown such bans to be ineffective).

I simply would say such moves increase the prevalent culture of not being responsible for your own life and choices, and treat people as children who the state needs to look after.

Who, other than a blithering idiot, thinks that eating large amounts of sugary sweets and deep fried food is good for you? Why the hell should we care if parents are too stupid to resist their children’s calls for bad food?

Update

Well I DO care about parents who let their children become morbidly unhealthy.  It raises the difficult issue as to when the state should intervene against parents who are deliberately or recklessly harming their children, because I am instinctively uncomfortable with people defining what that is.

Without a welfare state, this may be easier, and it may be easier without legislation that protects people from alleged discrimination by private individuals. 

For adults, it should be left to them, but to parents of children that are obese (and who exacerbate or don't care about the situation), is it about other relatives, friends and family caring.  I tend to lean towards the state intervening only if the parents actively take steps that are risking the child's life or being wantonly negligent.  

Meanwhile, if other people are concerned they should act.

After Helen (and Phil, and David)

From 2006

Whether it limps along to 2008 or not, Helen Clark will not be leader of the Labour Party within three years. Caucus must be looking at each other and considering who the successor could be... so I thought I'd go through some of them:

- Michael Cullen. Well he could, but he's part of the same tired generation, ex. Cabinet Ministers..

Update

and that's where it ended.  Phil Goff of course succeeded and did an admirable job of ensuring Labour couldn't move beyond its core.  David Shearer has repeated this, despite being a rather decent chap, and now it is Silent T.

Labour's problem is quite fundamental.  Nowadays it touts class warfare and mild xenophobic rhetoric in the hope it can win support from the neo-Marxist Greens and the fear-mongering NZ First, but none of this is new.

Until it can be innovative, and seek to advocate more than just the usual formula of more government spending and regulation, it faces being outdone on that front by the Greens, and being seen as relatively uninteresting.   Meanwhile, the Nats can always say it is risky to vote for Labour because you'll get whacky Green policies with it - and despite the lack of serious scrutiny of the Greens, most voters run a mile from their politics.

National meanwhile is playing the semi-Muldoonist "safe pair of hands" approach, so that a plurality of voters are happy not to rock the boat.

So Labour looks like getting relatively nowhere in the 2014 general election, hoping only that the Nats might have to get into bed with Winston Peters, which ought to poison the Nats enough to give Labour a reasonable run at power in 2017 or sooner.

It's hardly an inspiring strategy.

Egypt's problems wont be solved by elections

You see in Egypt the problem comes from the politicians and they arise from the culture.

Unfortunately Egypt has a culture of  kleptocracy, corruption and favouritism. 

When he was President, Hosni Mubarak enriched himself to the tune of US$42 billion.  This is scandalous but hardly unexpected, because politicians in absolute power will both use violence to retain power and will be thieving bastards one and all.  Yet this is what politics does.  By granting unlimited power to people elected or otherwise, they do violence to others, they collect money through violence and can use it to corrupt, and can be corrupted to change laws, grant contracts and the like. 

It is what politics can do and does, and liberal democracy doesn't contain it, culture does.  In the US, politics is corrupted because people seek favours from politicians in the forms of money or privileges granted by the state.  However, there is an independent judiciary and free press, so there are institutions in place that can contain this.

In Egypt this doesn't exist.  It is stuck between the kleptocratic authoritarian culture of the army, which has deep roots in business and the economy well beyond what should be its core role.  

However, Islam also has deep roots that mean that a significant plurality of Egyptians are quite happy for the state and religion to be as one, meaning non-Muslims in Egypt face serious risks of oppression and discrimination by the state.

So when foreign observers call for free and fair elections, that's all very well, but what is the reason for this?  What do they want for Egyptians?