Sorry Wayne Brown … you’ve blown it and from hereon-in you will be defined as the Mayor who abrogated his responsibility to lead when leadership was needed. And now the series of explosive tweets from him bemoaning his inability to play tennis on Sunday having instead to deal with ‘drongo media’. Stupid, stupid, stupid … one can only imagine the reaction from the 400+ property owners with their homes red or yellow stickered and from the many business owners whose livelihoods have suffered (with some unlikely to reopen). The best you can say is that WB is a technocrat totally devoid of the human touch … his authority as Mayor will be forever diminished … he has handed his detractors his head on a plate.
And then we have the spectacle of Donald Trump being Donald Trump. Claimed he won the Senior Club Championship at the Trump International Golf Club last weekend after having failed to turn up on Day 1 instead declaring the 40 point Stableford round he shot the previous Thursday should count as his Saturday score meaning he went into the Sunday final found with a five point advantage. At any other golf course in the world such a claim would have been laughed off the course. Trump after his ‘victory’ … “You need strength and stamina to WIN, & I have strength and stamina – most others don’t”. Trump’s love for golf – and playing it by his own rules – inspired writer Rick Reilly’s bestselling book ‘Commander in Cheat, How Golf Explains Trump’.
Wayne Brown and Donald Trump … both fatally flawed individuals.
No Minister 
Quite right.
The mistake that the centre-right made here was choosing a candidate simply on his ability to beat the Labour candidate in an election.
Credibility, prior record of service, principles and character didn’t come in to it.
I don’t know why people ever had any faith in Brown. He talked big up in Northland and produced no real change, so I had low expectations of him here in dealing with the entrenched Auckland bureaucracy. About the only thing that could be said was that having him instead of Effeso meant that more dingbat Leftist policies would at least be delayed for three years. That’s about as low as expectations get.
Having said that, I’m not willing to join the left and the MSM (but I repeat myself) in piling on. Brown may have little or no human touch and the nous that leadership means getting out front even if in reality it’s bullshit, but the fact is the whole Auckland bureaucracy failed except – as usual – the folks at the coal face of emergency services and ordinary people who used cell and internet comms technology to organise themselves and their neighbours. All these stupid “Emergency Alerts” going out now are just a wankers bolting the stable door.
Brown is part of that problem but not the whole part and indeed not even much of it given he’s been Mayor for a few months as opposed to Goff and Len Brown with 12 years to build such services. We’ll see if Wayne Brown fixes this but my hopes are not high
Yeah Donals Trump cheats at golf…who would thunk dat! At least he doesnt pet young girls, have a son who rip millions off the Chinese and Ukraines, or have his dick sucked by interns. They dont even seem to have got him on cheating on his taxes.
Meanwhile in reality ville, 2 polls have bounced back in favour of Labour. So your man Luxie perhaps not sleep walking to victory.
I hear the Ratana speak was a nothing, followed by another $140m bribe to the maoris….oh dear
Loved the pictures of him lifting wet carpet in Auckland, he was good at it………ummmmm
Hmmmm … for someone who has defined himself defending Trump as the next thing to JC I guess that’s a big admission. Re your comment on the two polls … if you had any understanding of the body politik you would know that all incoming leaders of major parties get a post election bounce … it remains to be be seen whether or not its a ‘dead cat’ bounce. The projected rise in the OCR and the removal of fuel/transport subsidies along with the continuing rise in supermarket basics will, I think, impact on those poll results. The election remain for National and ACT to lose. The alternative a Labour/Green/TPM coalition with the Greens and TPM calling the shots.
And now the series of explosive tweets from him bemoaning his inability to play tennis on Sunday having instead to deal with ‘drongo media’.
Can’t help but agree, tweets should have read “Pig ignorant slime scum” to be accurate (Mr Brown missed the bus on that one) but the National-alligned commentariat’s reaction sure does explain where National is at.
Even if Labour are voted out at the first opportunity New Zealand is fucked.
au contraire. The leftist media were wetting their pants with excitement trying to catch him out and the narrative absolutely set. They are clearly a bunch of drongos.
Hipkins was slow. All previous State of emergencies were declared centrally by govt. The metservice screwed up. There has been a huge amount of rainfall and tragic for those flooded but life goes on. Sheer stupidity closing the schools.
Brown will take no prisoners getting shit done from here.
Just where did you get the notion that declaring a state of emergency is the responsibility of central government because its not … under the Civil Defence Emergency Management Act 2002 the power in vested in the Civil Defence Emergency Management Group (Regional body) or Mayor (local body). Already this decade there have been 21 such declarations plus a national one relating to the pandemic. Brown screwed up royally and that is why up here in the Far North he was voted out of office … zip, zero, nil people skills.
What we’re seeing here once again is National’s (and the Centre-Right’s) lofty desire to claim that their standards are so high they’re willing to bag one of their own, on the assumption that they will be rewarded by voters for their standards and principles being so wonderful that they are even applied to their own side.
But when was the last time you saw Labour activists and politicians bag a Leftist Mayor for their failures? I can’t recall such a thing. And yet the Left are just as electorally successful as the Right, at least since 1990. In fact since 2000 they’ve been more successful. I guess voters don’t reward standards and principles.
Hmm, fair point.
But I would rather lose an election with a good candidate than win one with a bad candidate. Because I don’t see the difference (in endstate) between a successful but bad CR candidate and a successful left candidate – they both leave the country worse off!
As to why the left tolerate failures – I don’t fully know. Tribalism, Machiavellianism, ignorance and delusion are probably factors.