Tuesday, March 25, 2014



I don't see it either

The "big" political news today (this being a non-sitting week when the politicians are on holiday, some of them literally) is that the Internet Party is in talks with Mana to form an electoral alliance (which presumably means a joint party list). Like pretty much everyone else, I'm boggled by this. Its easy to see why the Internet Party would want to talk to Mana: they're unlikely to make 5%, so they need to find an electorate MP to get their people into Parliament. But its much harder to see why Mana would be interested in assisting a party founded by a multi-millionaire (who sought to buy influence via John Banks), and whose platform and core constituency has virtually nothing in common with theirs. Even talking to Dotcom undermines Mana's sense of authenticity and alienates its supporters and activists. For them, its all cost and no benefit.

But maybe I'm wrong. Maybe Maori and the poor are deeply interested in internet freedom, and maybe there's a lot of IT geeks who support the Treaty and worker's rights. Or maybe, despite those enormous differences, they'll be able to get along, or at least co-habit. After all, Winston manages it - though largely by ensuring his two core constituencies of conservative Maori and racist Pakeha pensioners are never in the same room together. But I doubt it.