Tuesday 15 May 2012

Brian Edwards gets a puppy dog [updated]

This is the funniest thing I’ve seen all morning. Yes, Labour’s gagging of David Cunliffe is funny enough [if true]. But Brian Edward’s description of Silent ‘T’ and his speech-making had me rolling around the floor.

But the real reason [for the gagging] was the party’s reaction to a ‘positioning’  speech given by Cunliffe to the New Lynn Women’s Branch of the Labour Party on 29 April. Judy and I both considered the speech brilliant…
    Anyway, ‘the top team’ didn’t like Cunliffe’s brilliant speech and he was apparently bawled out by Shearer and others and told the  speech was’ naive and stupid’ … This is so utterly stupid that it beggars belief. Cunliffe is not only intellectually brilliant, he is by far Labour’s most accomplished debater in the House and on television and radio.

I love it. Did you spot the use of the word “brilliant”? Brilliant, isn’t it.

And not only is The Great Man intellectually brilliant (and it’s the way the “not only” is used that really gets me—like “not only is Antarctica cold, it has penguins as well!)--not only is The Great Cunliffe intellectually brilliant but he can talk as well!  My god!  ( Can he can walk on water too, Brian? Be sure and let us know, won’t you.)

And that speech!  Not only brilliant, but doubly brilliant.

- We both considered the speech brilliant! 

-  Yes! Both me and my wife!

Boy, oh boy!  You can just feel the puppy dog’s tail wagging, can’t you.

It’s just possible the only one with a higher regard for Cunliffe’s brilliance than Cunliffe himself (and that’s saying something) is Brian. And his wife.

But seriously, Brian (and Judy, if you’re reading) you surely both have to be kidding. 

Because if your evidence for this “brilliance”  is that speech you and your wife both loved (“we both considered the speech brilliant”), then I hate to break it to you. Because of brilliance or vision there was none.

UPDATE: It gets even more hilarious. Chris Trotter goes in to bat for the “compellingly radical” Cunliffe, concluding “this sort of overt factional squabbling has not been seen in the Labour Party for more than fifteen years.” Just imagine: not since Helen Clark started squatting over the Labour Party’s tribal divisions like Marshal Tito once squatted over the traditional tribal conflicts in the Balkans.

And it’s taken a few years, but just as when Tito’s dictatorship collapsed (in his case with his death) the scab was well and truly ripped off every tribal and fratricidal conflict in the Balkans, so too with Clark’s departure  the scab has been well and truly ripped off every tribal and fratricidal conflict within Labour.

Which, this time, is fun to watch.

PS: Has it ever struck you that David Cunliffe looks like a hairy gibbon?

imageDavid Cunliffe

imageHairy Gibbon

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

if you quote Bernard Hickey as an authority, you lose all rights to your work being called 'brilliant'.

insider

Kiwiwit said...

I've always had the impression that beneath that urbane Anglo-Irish exterior, Brian Edwards is a seething mass of absolute contempt for humanity.

Mark Hubbard said...

Economically illiterate social commentators should never pass judgement on economically illiterate politicians. It has to all end in tears.

Actually, the only one who does come from this looking better is Shearer. If he understands the harm of Cunnliffe's cult Keynesian nonsense, then perhaps he does have a glimmer of economic nous?

Anonymous said...

So hows that new "freedom" party coming along, PC?

twr said...

It's back. Thought you "didn't have time" to troll here.

Mark Hubbard said...

It's depressing how people have become so low they mock at the notion of freedom. What the hell happened to us?

Simon said...

Skimming through Cunnliffe’s speech again suspect he has had some sort of mental breakdown. A reaction to losing out to that utter non-entity Sheerer.

The various sob sisters on the left think Cunnliffe is a tortured genius but the effects of peak government sweeping across Europe are plain to see.

As damaging as the Key / Sheerer one party state is to NZ if the Cunnliffe clown together with Greens & their "green jobs" run NZ then the keys will have been handed over to the lunatics.

Better start looking for that Pacific holiday home now.

Mark Hubbard said...

'Peak government' ;)

Brilliant - I'm stealing that one, Simon.

Ross said...

Actually Cunliffe looks more like a cat than a gibbon. On the other hand Ayn Rand looked like a corpse that had been dragged behind a car for a few miles.