Throwing horse shit on a royal Rolls is about $9600 more serious than tossing it over John Banks

He is described in this Stuff report as “a veteran protester” although Alf is more inclined to regard him as an ageing trouble-maker.

His name is Castislav “Sam” Bracanov and the silly old fart has been found guilty of throwing a bucket of watered-down horse manure over former ACT leader John Banks last year.

Actually, the charge was common assault.

As you will see further down, assaults on a commoner do not command the same sense of outrage as assaults on the royals or their motor vehicles.

The evidence that Bracanov did assault a commoner is not easy to refute, notwithstanding his not guilty plea. A video of the incident can be seen above.

It’s no fun, being on the campaign trail in Epsom with a true-blue MP who aims to lose

When they told him to take a dive, this isn’t what they intended.

Gotta say Alf happened to be in Epsom yesterday (getting back home explains the tardiness in posting this item).

And he happened upon that Goldsmith feller about the same time as the Herald.

The bugger was out campaigning to lose which is much the same as throwing a fight in the boxing ring or doing whatever bent cricketers do to help some gambling enterprise.

If you know he has been hobbled – yeah, all for the good of the National Party, so it must be okay – it’s not much fun to watch.

It’s not much fun listening to him explain what’s going on, either .

As the Herald observes today, Paul doesn’t want to win the electorate vote and hence was fielding questions from voters on just who they should be backing.

The mob baying for Banksie’s blood includes some Nats but he hasn’t burgled or been boozed

John Banks is unlikely to be able to lay claim to the Maori Throne. Not successfully, anyway.

Accordingly it will be difficult for him to argue that a conviction for breaking the law around electoral donations might disqualify him from sitting on that throne one day . A conviction therefore is on the cards, when he turns up to learn what sentence has been decided for him, even though his offence is not in the same anti-social league as the burglary and drunken driving that landed a certain high-ranking indigenous person in trouble.

Well over half the people questioned about Banks’ fate in a survey accordingly have a fair chance of finding the judge goes along with them when they say they want him convicted.

Banks – it will be remembered – was leader of the Act party before he resigned last month. He was a former government minister, too.

Alas, he was found guilty in the High Court at Auckland of knowingly filing a false electoral return.

Labour’s exorbitant liquor lark – $100,000 for a bottle of Clark Gargle looks a bit rich

Liu’s partner got wine, Rick Barker got forgetful … and Cunliffe has got the hangover.

The authorities who police these things should take a bloody hard look at the way the Labour Party has got into the liquor trade.

Alf’s good mate Whale Oil drew attention a few weeks ago to a Labour Party fund-raiser in South Auckland, when those in attendance tossed coins at a bottle of whisky.

Alf’s fondness for good scotch might have tempted him to have a go at winning the bottle by these means, but he would have balked at having to travel to Auckland – a sad city he prefers to avoid – and he has been programmed never to do anything that would benefit the Labour Party.

Is Rodney Hide aiming to become the namby-pamby headmaster of a school where no kid is a loser?

Look at the scoreboard…neither side has lost.

Had Mrs Grumble got her reading glasses on, Alf inquired when she read the headline on Rodney Hide’s column in the Herald on Sunday this morning.

Surely she had misread it.

Nope. The headline sure enough said:

Rodney Hide: They’re all winners, more or less

So the headline writer had failed to sum up the essence of the column?

Nope again.

On the widely discussed matter of what Banksie should now do, can we agree on one thing?

Re all the hullabaloo about John Banks.

First, Banksie was found guilty of filing a false electoral return.

Justice Wylie said he was not persuaded beyond reasonable doubt that the return was false in relation to the SkyCity donation, but he was sure the return was false when it came to the Megastuff payments.

Then came the political responses.

Give our iwi a break – privilege is for Pakeha and what Maori are fishing for is simply an exemption

John Banks just doesn’t get it.

He fails to recognise that our indigenous people are special and should be treated accordingly.

That goes for their business activities, too.

And so there should be no surprise to find a select committee has recommended that Maori fishing quota holders be exempt from legislation designed to protect migrant workers on foreign chartered vessels from exploitation.

But according to the Herald (here), Banks fails to recognise that this is no more than special treatment being properly recommended for our special people.

He calls it privilege.

Let’s jog our memories on what David Shearer said about forgetfulness and fitness to hold office

Good to see The Boss seize on David Shearer’s failure to declare a US-based bank account with more than $50,000 in it on the MPs’ Register of Pecuniary Interests.

He describes it (here) as an “unfortunate” mistake of a type the Labour Party is quick to criticise the Government for.

“People make mistakes. I make mistakes and when I do, I try and tell people I’ve made them. It’s just that you don’t get cut any slack from the Labour Party when you say you’ve made a mistake, but when they make one they don’t want anyone to have a look at it.”

Mind you, Shearer isn’t talking of a mistake.

Banks bursts into life and opposes the car-park tax – but look how the bugger voted back in November…

Alf is pleased to report that none of his constituents has expressed outrage at the proposed car-park tax.

This may well be explained by Eketahuna’s serious lack of public car parks. The citizens here can park for free on the main street.

It’s not the same in Auckland, obviously, which is what makes Eketahuna a more attractive place to live than Auckland, except, maybe, if you want to go boating or yachting or some-such.

Auckland’s parking costs no doubt explain why Small Business Minister and Act leader John Banks has popped up to criticise the Government’s proposed taxation of employer-supplied carparks in Auckland and Wellington as “petty”.

We don’t need Treasury – surely – to tell us not to bank on Banks to turn out smarter kids

Funny thing about Christmas day is that Alf has a serious compulsion to find something to read, while Mrs Grumble gets on with cooking the Christmas turkey.

And his Christmas Day reading today led him to something he missed the other day.

Something about charter schools.

Dunno if we needed a set of Treasury papers to find expressions of scepticism about the charter schools improving student performance.