A carnival of the clueless

Moron

Feast your eyes upon Mr Malcolm France. Mr France is a candidate standing in the Mt Albert By election under the banner of "People Before Profit".

His idea of civilized political discourse is to squash a lamington onto the top of a political opponent's head as he is talking, in this case Act's John Boscawen.

By all accounts Mr Boscawen handled this indignity with aplomb carrying on as if nothing had happened.

Meanwhile National's Melissa Lee came to the party brushing the debris from Mr Boscawen's head - an adult response to a purile act.

Panderer

Maori will develop their own infrastructure within Auckland if they are not given seats on the planned super-city, says Maori Affairs Minister Pita Sharples.

Speaking after yesterday's hikoi, Dr Sharples was confident that Prime Minister John Key was still open to ideas.

But he said if Maori seats were not accepted, Maori infrastructure would grow and Maori would have their own capacity within Auckland.

"We're now a major player in the economy in terms of labour and everything around this city.

Dr Peter Sharples speaking after yesterday's hikoi.

So what exactly is the good Dr Sharples proposing here, Maori transport systems? Maori sewerage and water reticulation?

All utterly impractical and it is never going to happen and nobody will seriously believe it could.

So these are just empty words - a childish "I'll hold my breath til I turn blue" type of argument.

Here's an idea - If Dr Sharples and his fellow travelers want "more representation" on the Auckland super city council why don't they identify people who they believe represent them and start preparing them to stand as candidates for this new body.

If they choose the right people they could even end up with greater representation than any race based allocation would ever give them.

This is not rocket science - it is just the way democracy is supposed to work and does when you strip away the identity politics.

Idiots

Finally these Englishmen from Bristol thought it would be funny to dress up as nuns and to wander about the Cretan town of Malia, lifting their skirts and regaling passers-by with their bits and pieces whether they wanted to see them or not.

For their trouble they spent the night in custody, were paraded, handcuffed together and still in their outfits, through the town of Iraklio from the cells to the courthouse before being discharged.

Which would seem to be an appropriate outcome.