Author: telboy2

Shake up the Coalition options?

Greens need to get politically real. I can see that rather than be always in the shadow of Labour. Gareth Morgan thinks similarly (from the Guardian):

Gareth Morgan, founder of the Opportunities party (TOP) is speaking to supporters. With the party currently sitting on 2.1%, it is not expected to take a seat in the new parliament.

He says TOP has been fighting to make New Zealand a fairer society, but many voters are reluctant to address issues that could help the crisis in housing affordability.

You need to be really proud, he tells supporters, saying they have put their own vested interests aside to try to help battle inequality.

And he says the Green party – traditionally backers of Labour administrations – should work with a government of any hue to push an environmental agenda:

I know it’s early days yet but I notice that the Green party is above 5% … so we’re going to lay down a challenge to the Green party … to say to National that we will work with you on the environment.

Are you actually green? You’re only green part-time and that’s not good enough for New Zealand.

Election Day

Today is the official day of the New Zealand’s elections. Voting has been possible for the last 2 weeks or so but today is the final day and the day of the count.

It is surprising how other parts of the world pay attention to this place at “the arse end of the world” of 4.5million people.

The UK at least is watching with a live blog set up to follow the results as they come in.

Even the Telegraph gives some space:

Even the French have seen the Jacinda effect:

 

Time to go to the booths and fulfil my duty as a citizen.

May tries to set a new tone

Theresa May has made a significant speech on Brexit in Florence. It seems to set out some clarity, is more conciliatory in tone but still leaves some things left answered. A desire to have a transition phase at least acknowledges reality that the exit date is fast approaching with slow progress being made in the negotiations. How much this moves the process on-who knows?

Brixiteers have reacted with criticism and NF talks of treason- no surprise there.

The reality is that the opposing demands of control and trade and relations are irrecocilable. So where will the line fall?

 

Tension rising

As the war of words becomes more aggressive between North Korea and the loud mouth Trump, the Guardian cartoonist provides his vision.

A sombre tone from the Guardian editorial:

The Guardian view on North Korea: careless talk costs credibility, and perhaps lives

Donald Trump’s warnings of ‘fire and fury’ will only make it harder to tackle the threat posed by North Korea’s nuclear programme
The US secretary of state, Rex Tillerson
 The US secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, has been playing down Donald Trump’s ‘fire and fury’ message to North Korea. Photograph: Jacquelyn Martin/AP

It is not reassuring when the US secretary of state has to reassure his country that it is not on the brink of war. “I think Americans should sleep well at night,” Rex Tillerson told reporters on Wednesday. He was playing down the incendiary words of his president, who had promised “fire and fury like the world has never seen” in response not to an attack but to mere threats from North Korea. It was “language designed to send a strong message” to Pyongyang, Mr Tillerson said.

A few hours later, the defense secretary, James Mattis, weighed in: North Korea should cease “actions that would lead to the end of its regime and the destruction of its people … [it] would lose any arms race or conflict it initiates”. Starker words than Mr Tillerson’s, but similarly designed to shift towards a more traditional message of deterrence: actions (not just threats) have consequences. Most likely this storm will soon pass. The armistice has held since 1953. The dire warnings after China and others joined the nuclear club proved unfounded. The previous North Korea crises have fizzled out; not least because nuclear weapons concentrate most minds.

But Mr Trump is not most people. The last US president to use this kind of language was Harry Truman, warning after Hiroshima that Japan must accept US terms or “expect a rain of ruin … the like of which has never been seen on this earth”. But that was in a world war, against a non-nuclear opponent.

The rhetoric was strikingly reminiscent of the bluster of North Korea itself. Yet Pyongyang’s bellicose statements are always worth parsing closely. In the past it has threatened the US mainland – even the White House – with nuclear attack if its survival was in doubt. On Wednesday it said it was considering plans to strike around the US Pacific territory of Guam, choosing a lesser target and talking of containing (not hitting) the military base. For all the extravagance of its threats, they are calculated, not cavalier.

In contrast, Mr Trump offers ad-libbed soundbites from the clubhouse of his resort and on Twitter. But as so often in his case, we should take them seriously if not literally. Military options are still under consideration. Experts say that intelligence on North Korea is too poor, and its capabilities too well advanced, to allow for their wholesale destruction in a preemptive strike. The risk of severe retaliation by conventional means alone is immense.

 

Films continue

Festival is in full flow.

The most appreciated film so far has been God’s Own Country. 

The film is set in Yorkshire and concerns a sheep farming family, particularly the son and how he changes with the arrival of a farm worker from Romania. The development of their relationship and the impact on his sexuality- from purely physical to emotional. With this comes the change in the dynamics of the family and the portrayal of the local racism.

Good film.

 

 

 

 

 

 

In Times of Fading Light is a German film set in 1989  just before the wall came down. I am not sure I completely understood all of the aspects but it was an interesting to see the portrayal of the communist world and its structures, culture and politics while the world is changing. The regime did not cater for the young who did not have a future while the older generation continued to look backwards and justified their world through the lens of WW2 and before.

 

 

 

 

 

Maybe a reflection of current politics with the generation gap of what is important- Brexit etc?

NZIFF

Yesterday included seeing a film early after work; the first of our New Zealand International Film Festival excursions.

The Party was appreciated more by SQ and EQ than me. A play in film format showed the various selfish and unpleasant characters and their interrelationship. Despite fine acting, an interesting format and clever twists it did not grab me.

Plenty more to come.