Speaker steers us away from the godless path that would have taken Christmas dinner out of our lives

Well done David Carter.

The Speaker of the House has announced that the traditional prayer he uses to open daily sittings of Parliament will remain as it is, with its Christian references.

As the Herald reports:

He undertook a very low-key consultation process with MPs and offered an alternative that would remove religious references to “Almight God” and “Jesus Christ our Lord” from the English version.

However his alternative prayer included lines in Maori – E te Atua Kaha Rawa – that translates to “Almighty God,” something Assistant Speaker Trevor Mallard described as “almost dishonest.”

As well as that, the Speaker would have included a daily acknowledgment to the local tribe Te Ati Awa.

Mr Carter would entertain no debate on an alternative; it would be either the current prayer or the alternative he proposed.

He refused any comment, clearly seeing it as a matter only for MPs.

A bit left of centre you’ll find a feller who is trying to flush out how Steffan Browning earns his keep

Alf took umbrage yesterday at a Stuff political hack’s focus on the fall of two former ministers, Crusher Collins and Maurice Williamson, to the bottom of the party pecking order.

Trouble was, this hack also saw fit to disclose their pay and perk entitlements.

This was discomforting for the Member for Eketahuna North because it was apt to give his constituents a pretty good idea of his earnings.

But today is another day and – hey – there has been a change of heart.

That’s because Alf has been familiarising himself with a new blog, Slightly Left of Centre, operated by a feisty  bugger by name of Josh Foreman.

This Foreman feller questioned the Greens about what Steffan Browning has done to earn his keep.

Steve Gibson’s handicap: he’s too fricking honest for the good of the Labour Party

Drink up … it’s a truth drug.

The remarkably stormy political career of a leftie by name of Steve Gibson was entirely predictable.

By his own account, the Labour Party’s Rangitata candidate is “too fricking honest”.

This clearly disqualifies him from standing for any party run by lefties or greenies and Alf is astonished that he ever signed up with any party with those leanings.

It was inevitable that David Cunliffe would soon be saying Gibson has no future as a Labour candidate.

Get back to broadcasting, Pam – telling the press to piss off won’t get policy into the headlines

“Great news, people – it looks like I won’t have to wave my undies.”

Alf remembers the potty-mouthed Pam Corkery (and not too fondly) from the days when she was a Member of Parliament for the Anderton Mob and rejoiced when she gave it away to go back to broadcasting.

She should have stuck to broadcasting and not taken another crack at politicking as press secretary for the Internet Party’s leader, Laila Harre.

She was an Alliance list MP and a colleague of Harre back in those days for just one term, from 1996 to 1999. Then she quit.

We must suppose the only politicians with whom she became acquainted during those three years were greenies and pinkos, because – as the Herald reminds us today:

In her 1999 book, Pam’s Political Confessions, she said, “Politicians are, by and large, far more self-deluding, devious, bloated, insecure, egocentric w****** than I had feared.”

She certainly did not exchange pleasantries with Alf at that time, to find there are politicians who do not meet her disparaging description.

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.

The case for being rid of roads is much stronger than the case for removing wi-fi from schools

So how can we keep our kiddies safe?

By getting rid of roads, for starters.

There’s a much stronger case for banning roads than banning wi-fi.

How many deaths attributed to proximity to wi-fi have been recorded in New Zealand over the Christmas holidays?

None.

Come to think of it, how many deaths can be attributed to wi-fi anywhere at any time?

Ah – now we know (and so does Len Brown) what happens when a mistress’s world falls apart

Gotta say it’s fascinating to learn what impulses kick in, when you lose an election.

This has never happened to your hard-working member for Eketahuna North, of course. It is a measure of his popularity and the voting public’s huge regard for him that he has galloped home by the proverbial country mile every time his name has been on a ballot paper.

The Labour sheila who stood against him at the last election perhaps had no expectation of winning. Hence her world did not fall apart when the inevitable happened and she was soundly defeated.

Not so in the case of the sheila at the centre of the Len Brown sex scandal.

Some opinions about a Maori welcome are best left unsaid, lest they land you in deep Krarup

So why should his descendants be spooked by a Maori welcoming ceremony?

Alf has huge admiration for the blogger who brings him Keeping Stock each day.

And he thanks Keeping Stock for alerting him here to something he missed in his newspaper. It was a report about an unhappy Dane who seems to have struggled to maintain her equilibrium during a good old Maori welcome.

Actually, Alf has a modicum of sympathy for this lady, who has put into words what lots of visitors may well have thought about their Maori welcome, except they have been much too nice to say so.

In a nutshell, she found a powhiri a disagreeable and uncivilised experience.

The politician in question is Marie Krarup, a Danish parliamentary politician and member of the the Danish People’s Party.

Texas legislators are properly arming students for learning at their alma mater – and at the Alamo

If you had given me an A-plus, this would not have been necessary.

We really are a bunch of wimps in this country.

We tut and cluck about the idea our cops should be allowed to carry guns.

In the USA – the more robust parts of it, anyway – they have much healthier attitudes.

Not only do the cops carry guns, but it looks likely that university students in Texas will be able to carry them too.

While the cops carry their persuaders in holsters by their sides, the students will be able to carry concealed guns.

Alf learns this from The Guardian, which reports –

Publicity-shy Aucklander should want us all to know he is frisky enough to jump on a car bonnet

We have two clues - he is aged around 46 and has been stressed.

Alf expected the Whale to be thrashing around in high dudgeon this morning, over the continued name suppression enjoyed by an Auckland bloke. He was not disappointed and refers his constituents to an item headed Smarty Devil in Disguise still afraid of his own name.

The Smarty Devil in question is described in the Herald as a high-profile household name but the newspaper goes no further in identifying him because the bloody judge has granted continued suppression of name.

His occupation may not be published, either.

But according to the Herald’s understanding, the bloke was arrested after an argument with his wife during which he jumped on the bonnet of their car in central Auckland.

Jumping on the bonnet of a car is not among the more heinous offences in this country and anyone caught doing it need not feel too ashamed. Indeed, Alf would be quite chuffed, were he known as someone who can jump on the bonnet of a car, because it is widely speculated among his constituents that he is not frisky enough nowadays to be able to perform such a feat.

Alf accordingly would demand that his name be published in such circumstances.