Ele asks, "Do they know what they're doing?" AC answers, "Yes."

Armchair Critic says:
April 23, 2013 at 2:04 pm

"Yes, I think they do know what they are doing. And while I also think you posed the title of the post as a rhetorical question, and you know they know what they are doing. As it is also inferred from the title of the post that they don’t know what they are doing, I will attempt to express why I believe the inference is wrong.
They are trying to do two things.
One is they are trying to win an election. A simple message like “cheaper electricity” has rhetorical potential to win a lot of votes. It’s also something that responses along the lines of “destroying the electricity market” and “communism by stealth” won’t get much traction against, because an electricity bill is something quite tangible, whereas markets and communism are a lot more abstract.
The other thing they are trying to do is leave money in people’s pockets, or as expressed by others elsewhere, remove the “taxation by stealth” that the dividends from the SOE generators represents. It truly says a lot about the supporters of the assets sales program that they would froth and boil when their opportunity to increase the aforementioned revenue stream and divert it to their own back pockets was so threatened. Nasty venal people."

He's good.

He's very good.

Every Tiny Straw

This is Armchair Critic. Rather, this is the avatar Armchair Critic has chosen, by default, to use as his public face. It could be worse. He might have chosen something regrettable, like this:

Fortunately, he has more discretion and Armchair Critic is the soul of that attribute, going by the information he provides on his blog, "Every Tiny Straw". He describes himself thus:

"Hi, I'm the Armchair Critic. I will write mostly about politics, from a NZ perspective, and also about gardening, applied ethics and whatever else springs to mind. I intend to try to average a post a day. I've never confirmed or denied my gender on the internet, or my sexuality. I have ancestors from a variety of ethnic backgrounds, remain in a longterm relationship (the legal status of which I won't confirm) and have children. I am employed by a multi-national corporate."

I find his commentaries pithy, accurate and funny and that's the holy trinity of blogging for me. Here's what he says about our 'John':

"Gotta ask, and it's a bit tongue in cheek: Having been forced to abandon his ordinary guy image, through his support for the twin vices of gambling (the industrialised sort at SkyCity) and prostitution, is Mr Key taking on a "regular John" (in the American sense) persona?"

I highly recommend Mr Critic and am today joining his team of readers and installing Every Tiny Straw into my own list of 'blogs I read every day'.