Thomas Coughlan has justified the Herald’s confidence in him with his recent appointment to Political Editor with a surprisingly insightful understanding of the Professional Managerial Class in Wellington’s Left…
How Labour walked away from Tory Whanau and backed Andrew Little – Thomas Coughlan
But Whanau’s mayoralty changed forever when she backed a plan to sell the council’s share of Wellington Airport, a long-time fetish of council officers.
The plan (which would have helped the council fund an insurance shortfall) split the Greens, but united Labour.
The Labour-Green coalition that had swung behind Whanau in 2022 fractured. The alliance of left-wing, pro-housing organisers who helped propel her to victory began marshalling against privatisation. This time, instead of swinging from Labour to Green, they swung the other way. Labour’s relationship with Whanau began to sour.
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Jones, who has known Little since he worked for him in his union days, was one of a number of figures who began urging Little to run.
Little had initially decided against running, but a flurry of calls from people across the political spectrum in mid-March persuaded him to change his mind, which was mostly made up two Sundays ago. The issue that changed Little’s mind was the council’s decision not to approach the Government for a regional deal (although this was a decision of all the region’s leaders, including Regional Council chair Daran Ponter and Hutt City Mayor Campbell Barry, both of whom have Labour affiliations).
Around that time, he received a call from Labour leader Chris Hipkins, who told Little that he too had been receiving calls for Little to run.
Little is a strong candidate. In a selfish business, he’s best known for the uniquely selfless act of stepping aside to make room for someone else.
Wellington, a city in the grip of Long-Jacindamania, is the ideal city for a candidate who is arguably Jacindamania’s patient zero.
He’s getting the gang back together. He’s got Jones’ backing, and Jones’ partner Alex Marett, formerly a staffer in Chris Hipkins’ ministerial office, is likely to be announced as Little’s campaign manager.
Other former staffers from his days as Labour leader and minister are said to be likely to play a role.
The change is widespread. CTU economist Craig Renney, who worked for Labour during the Little years before joining Grant Robertson’s ministerial team, will likely volunteer and next year, Renney is almost certain to seek selection for the Rongotai electorate in an attempt to wrest it back from Genter.
Labour’s swing against the Greens is sweeping up its own candidates. Matthews was rolled as Labour candidate in her ward, potentially over her strong backing of Whanau.
The Greens extended an offer to Matthews and will likely announce some arrangement with her next week, likely adding her to the ticket.
Labour’s reliance on consultants is part of their cultural Professional Managerial Class capture.
The Wellington Bureaucracy isn’t left wing! It’s a self interested Professional Managerial Class who use identity politics to mask their neoliberal hands-off-do-nothing-but-build-glass-palaces fiefdoms.
Oh they do the reo, and expose their pronouns and militantly ride bikes, they are effortless in their use of inclusion as a means to dominate and control the narrative, but they are a middle class clique, not left wing egalitarianism.
The Wellington Bureaucracy is a culture war of woke middle class Identity Politics aspirations backed with State funding, they may aesthetically be Left but they sure as fuck aren’t economically Left.
Likewise the consultancy industry that feed on their Wellington relationships with the Self Serving Public Service, they are also part of the woke washed culture clique whose interests are not ours.
What happens is we have huge numbers of managers and very few staff. The mangers look after their interests, the staff get sacked and hired back as consultants and the same cultural clique keep getting paid while the misery of the poor is ignored.
The Wellington Woke Professional Managerial Class and their cosy relationships with consultants is a reminder they aren’t economically left, they are aesthetically left.
The Left aren’t attacking this outrageous corporate influence directly in the heart of our democracy because their favourite Woke Edgelords are part of this orgy of corporate self interest masquerading as the common good…
The current Government has a very close connection with lobbyists, partly because lots of senior staff have moved backwards and forwards into such jobs. For example, corporate lobbyist Neale Jones, who runs the firm Capital Relations, was previously Jacinda Ardern’s Chief of Staff, but left the job in 2017, to immediate set up a lobbying business, utilising his connections in the Beehive.
Soon after Jones departed, Ardern asked another lobbyist, GJ Thompson to come and fill the empty Chief of Staff position for a few months. He was told he could simply “suspend” his lobbying activities at his firm Thompson Lewis, help set up the new government and then go back to working as a lobbyist, taking with him all of his new connections, his inside information on the new administration, and the benefits of having hired half of the new staff. Industry insiders said that this was a boon for Thompson, who would then be able to charge his clients much more due to his extraordinary connections and knowledge. What should have been a major scandal barely raised a mention in the media.
There are plenty of other lobbyists around the Labour Government profiting from their connections. Neale Jones and Clint Smith, for example, are effectively “the privatised wing of the Labour Party”. Not only do they play a “communications” role of getting the messages from corporations into the Beehive, they also play a central role of getting the Government’s messages and spin out to the public.
…even the Greens are snout deep in the trough…
Even the Green Party seems to have become more lobbyist-friendly lately. Its own Chief of Staff Tory Whanau recently left to become a lobbyist with the firm run by Neale Jones, and is currently running for Mayor in Wellington with the endorsement of her party.
…and let’s not forget the mighty Ruminator…
…we believe you Dave, we believe you.
The Wellington Twitteratti are silent because half of them are running State consultancies as well!
Most of the woke Wellington Twitteratti are also part of the Professional Managerial Class so consultancy is their bread and butter and their accessing political power for their corporate masters is seen as beneficial rather than parasitic.
The corporate self interest here pretending to be social policy is outrageous.
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