Ratana take the t-shirts off the backs of their people – and all because of a political joke

Those of you who bothered taking much notice (if any) of the politicians who flocked to the Ratana Church birthday bash a week or so ago probably missed it.

Alf most certainly can’t remember the media drawing attention to it, and they always pounce like vultures when they see this sort of thing.

The chance they missed -we now find – was a prime ministerial blue.

Yep. The Boss blundered.

Personally, Alf reckons he blundered simply by turning up there to pay homage to a bloke who claimed a century or so ago to have seen a vision.

Moreover he regarded this vision as divinely inspired,and he likened himself to Christ.

Richard Prosser might think he’s talking tough – but he’s a pussy cat for rejecting the castle doctrine

And then we’ll string the bugger up from the nearest tree.

Some namby-pamby hack at the NZ Herald today credits NZ First with having “a hardline law and order policy” that would offer greater protection to homeowners, farmers and shop keepers who shoot to kill intruders during home invasions or burglaries.

Part of the policy is a 40-year mandatory non-parole sentence for premeditated murder.

Alf’s idea of hard line would be to string the buggers up from the nearest tree, skipping the trial thing if need be.

NZ First also wants the Crimes Act amended to give certainty over the use of “reasonable force” for self-defence.

On this one, Alf would dispense with any need to demonstrate reasonable force had been used.

Next time he bumps into Richard Prosser around the precincts of Parliament, these matters should provide the stuff for a lively argument.

 

Thanks to Whanau Ora, new ways have been found for saying “piss-up” and “paramour”

Winston Peters had almost won Alf to his side of the argument about those funny aura handouts.

But he has blown it.

If he had called his partner his ladylove, mistress, paramour, sweetheart or inamorata, fine.

But he didn’t.

He called her his “associate”.

Mrs Grumble has been so taken by this label that she is demanding she similarly be known as Alf’s associate.

Some miracles are to be marvelled at, but the resurrection of Winston Peters is not one of them

Good to see you, Lazarus ... but bringing that Peters fellow back from the dead won't be so easy.

It’s the stuff of nightmares, Alf wrote a year ago – “Winston and his mob have risen from the dead”.

The awful news to trigger that dismay came from a media release from an outfit called Horizonpolls. It was headlined New Zealand First May Decide Which Main Party Governs

John Roughan, a columnist at the NZ Herald, was as derisive as Alf was dismayed.

He complained that this media release proclaimed the premature start of The Silly Season.

His tart tone no doubt was influenced by the fact the Sunday Star-Times, owned by the Fairfax mob, had given front-page treatment to to the poll pointing to Winston’s political resurrection.

Should you vote for Winston Peters? Why not take his advice on the matter

Hurrah for the Herald on Sunday.

It has delivered a timely reminder today that maybe the voters had good cause to rid Parliament of New Zealand First representation at the 2008 election.

Whee! Three glorious years without the strutting, the posturing and the hectoring of Winston Peters during parliamentary sessions has been refreshing.

And this being so, voters shouldn’t be too hasty about bringing the bugger back.

The HoS notes the poll figures that suggest too many voters have short memories.

Or worse, maybe they do remember, but they are so intellectually enfeebled that they actually highlight the case for voters to pass an intelligence test before they are allowed to register on the electoral roll.

A sobering experience after all those parties – Gilbert Myles finds himself before a judge

Alf proposes a Parliamentary Hall of Infamy for MPs and former MPs who finish up on the wrong side of the law.

He is pleased to observe this morning that Gilbert Myles is jockeying for a position.

That’s good. He could run the show.

In a court report today, the Herald describes him as “a former National MP”, but the bugger couldn’t stomach The Mother of All Budgets delivered by the admirable Ruth Richardson back in 1991.

He went on to join anything that looked like a party until the good people of Roskill had the good sense in 1993 – from memory – to biff him out.

Who’s that with a spade? Oh, its Phil Goff, headed for the graveyard to dig up a coalition partner

Alf is fairly confident his constituents will all be voting for him at the next election, although he harbours a niggling doubt about a certain party on Newman Road who will go unnamed. The bugger was spotted buying meusli at the local store, a hint – perhaps – that maybe he is a Greenie.

This opens the teeniest possibility that one or two votes might not be cast for Alf. His confidence in being a shoo-in for re-election has been thoroughly fortified, however, by news that Phil Goff says Labour could work with New Zealand First if it needed the numbers to form a government.

It’s fair to say the good people of Eketahuna North, including the local equivalent of the blue-rinse set, will be thoroughly spooked by Goff’s willingness to lie down with someone who has come back from the dead.

It’s also fair to say that Goff will need numbers from a great array of parties, including the Bill and Ben Party and the Aotearoa Legalise Cannabis Party, to become prime minister.

So what does the pugnacious Winston Peters have in common with the skipper of the Graf Spee?

The Graf Spee...it was sunk not by the enemy but by its captain.

Finding no news of worth in the Sunday papers today, Alf picked up a copy of a speech by Winston Peters to browse through while breakfasting.

It was optimistically titled The Road Back and was delivered to the NZ First Tauranga Electorate.

The road back to where, exactly, was not stated.

And nope. Peters did not deliver the speech in a telephone booth. He hired the St Johns Church Hall, but Alf does not know how many members of the party faithful turned up for the occasion.

NZ First must be dreaming

Ha. The triumph of hope over experience.

According to Newstalk ZB, New Zealand First wants to be back in Parliament after the 2011 election.

The way Alf remembers it, they wanted to be back in Parliament after the 2008 election.

Thanks mostly to Winston Peters’ antics before and during the election campaign, they didn’t make it.

Peters pops up – now let’s put him back

Alf knew the best-forgotten Winston Peters would be dug up and interviewed on Q&A yesterday. Accordingly he gave the programme a big miss.

But Inventory, at Keeping Stock, found something noteworthy in what the great populist had to say (or was reported to have said):

Repealing the Foreshore and Seabed Act would be a disastrous backward step sending New Zealand towards separatism, New Zealand First leader Winston Peters said today.