SkyCity incident involving Paul Henry raises an interesting question about bigotry towards bigots

A small confession: Alf is not averse to a bit of biffo, in appropriate circumstances.

Another confession: he happens to regard Paul Henry as fondly as he regards a moth or fly that has flown on a kamikaze mission into his whisky.

And thirdly, as a firm believer in human rights, Alf staunchly stands by a bloke’s right to be a bigot.

Accordingly he feels tempted to take a dim view of the fellow who has been accused of assaulting Paul Henry and who allegedly told police the television presenter was “a racist and a bigot who should expect consequences for his views”.

Guilt- it must be emphasised – has yet to be established.

Forget about poverty until the Budget speech is read – for now, let’s wallow in this corporate swill

Dunno what’s in The Budget for the poor people.

But Alf is delighted to learn that the corporate welfare trough has not been emptied in the name of fiscal austerity or in same mad endeavour to produce a surplus.

The Boss dipped into the trough yesterday with his Tourism hat on to dish out lots of lolly to two operators who look sufficiently well-heeled to find their own lolly, but hey – what’s the point of being in government if you can’t steer a bit of taxpayers’ money in the direction of supporters or people who might become supporters if appropriately nourished.

Alf is especially delighted to see that an enterprise run by our indigenous people is being nicely looked after. These people are very special, as readers of this blog know, and if we didn’t give them something like this they would be waving the bloody treaty and demanding it.

A consequence of this largesse is some good publicity from Maori Television:

Labour did a U-turn on a capital gains tax so it could take pot-shots when we Nats changed direction

Alf has confessed to his drinking mates that maybe he wasn’t paying attention, when capital gains taxes were last discussed by our caucus.

He has a strong recollection of scoffing at Labour’s capital tax proposals during the election campaign last year and he was hugely amused when the lefties decided this policy had been a mistake.

He also recalls the strongly expressed rejection of a capital gains tax from Bill English (our splendid Minister of Finanace, if you aren’t acquainted with his importance to our economic well-being).

Not too long ago he was disputing an OECD report which said the growing gap between rich and poor in New Zealand is leading to lower overall economic growth.

A report from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development said the countries with the biggest increases in income gaps over recent years are New Zealand, Finland, Israel, Sweden and the United States.

To keep ponytail temptation out of John Key’s grasp, this Scottish MP should stay out of his way

He could come here while John Key is overseas, so long as he brings some local scotch.

Alf would strongly recommend to one of the newly elected Scottish MPs that he steer clear of our Prime Minister.

The gentleman in question is one of the 56 jubilant MPs from the Scottish National party who arrived in Westminster on Monday, led by Nicola Sturgeon.

According to this report in the Financial Times,

Spirits were high as the party’s MPs jostled for position in the Westminster sunshine outside the Commons for a group photograph, watched by cheering SNP supporters, one of whom waved a giant Saltire.

While some of the new MPs confessed they did not know how to find their way round the building, Mr Salmond, the former leader and an MP until 2010, greeted old friends and talked to journalists in the corridors.

Mr Salmond joked about what jobs he might do in the new parliament, suggesting he could become head of the intelligence committee, or even the Commons speaker.

It’s a bit of a pity that Labour couldn’t win any seats but we’ll just have to move on to Plan B, as they say.

Raising human rights stuff has a time and a place and The Boss is right to put trade matters first

And it seriously reduces the incidence of hitting the wrong target that you get from those bloody drones…

The Boss has his priorities right,

He has defended his upcoming trip to Saudi Arabia and said a free trade agreement with the Kingdom will allow the two parties to talk about a ‘range of issues’ including human rights abuses.

He’s the first Prime Minister to visit Saudi Arabia but there are some sad-sack grouchers in this country who reckon he shouldn’t go because of the country’s human rights abuses, including beheadings.

It so happens Alf does not regard a beheading as a human rights abuse. It’s simply a means of execution and there are some bastards who thoroughly deserve be dispatched from the land of the living.

Should rescuers listen to Blue and not touch people without their OK – or would that be a big blue?

These ladies would get no complaint from Alf, if they manhandled him without his permission.

Oh, Gawd.

Bloody Jackie Blue is banging on again, obviously abandoning her National Party loyalties for the moment.

She has been prompted to add to the outpouring of feminist condemnation of The Boss over that pony tail stuff.

And what does she know about it?

Not much, as she acknowledges:

Todd needs to learn that some people will always disagree with him – and saying sorry is silly

Gotta have a word with one of our young-buck MPs, next time we are back in Parliament.

Clutha-Southland’s Todd Barclay has just done something that suggests he must have been eating much too much southern swede and his judgement has been impaired by this diet of stuff that’s best left for cows and sheep to tuck into.

This Barclay plonker has a Facebook page, which is something Alf has eschewed, and on this page he has made a remark about Campbell Live.

As a consequence he seems to have quickly learned something that is well understood by people who are not raised on a diet of swede.

He has learned that if you say something, a lot of people will agree with you and a lot of people will disagree.

And if a lot of people don’t agree with you, then that’s just too bad. They are probably lefties or greenies who will never vote for you, so you should forget all about them and what they said.

And if you must tell them something, well, tell them to go and get fucked.

That’s what we want from the PM – a clear warning that a vote for Peters is a vote against wider bridges

You’ve got to wonder why we bother hiring these high-flying press advisers, campaign strategists and what-have you.

The Boss has done the right thing on the Northland by-election campaign trail thanks to advice – freely given – by the Member for Eketahuna North.

The advice was to tell it like it is.

Our promises to build bloody bridges in a far-flung part of the country and give the locals broadband are blatant bribes.

Vote for some other plonker and we don’t pay up.

Because Alf is a firm believer in the vote-winning possibilities of bribes – or pork barrelling, if you are squeamish – he was delighted to hear the bridge-building plan announced when it looked like Winston Peters was in with a chance.

But he was dismayed when he heard:

The only MPs pay reform we need is to introduce zero-hour contracts (but only for lefties and greens)

Good grief.

For a second successive day the Member for Eketahuna North has been seriously pissed off by the Taxpayers Union.

This time the irritant is a bloke by name of Ben Craven, who is described as a spokesman.

Niggler, more like it.

He accuses we politicians of trying to pull the wool over New Zealand taxpayers in relation to MP pay reform.

How so?

He is claiming that if the proposed policy changes had been in place since National came into office, which is 2008, MPs’ pay rises would have averaged 3.1% rather than the 1.7% that occurred.

Don’t sniff too closely at our bridge upgrade plans – think instead of the scents of going for broke

Roll out the barrel..

That was Alf’s advice when party chiefs consulted him at the weekend on how to counter the Peters threat.

No, he was not talking about rolling out the beer barrel to liquor up the locals. That would be bribery and bribery is seriously frowned upon in our electoral laws.

Alf was recommending we roll out the pork barrel.

Pork barreling, of course, is a term used to describe the appropriation of government spending for localised projects secured solely or primarily to bring money to a representative’s district.

Alf has recommended this tactic before, and the party bosses have listened.