Woods has a habit of dredging up nastiness?

Today DPF posted a vile bit of speech by Labour’s Megan Woods where she tried to connect the Nazis and National’s decision to sell minitoriy stakes in some government owned companies.

(And we must always remember, that selling means “exchanging ownership for money of equal value”.)

Anyho, it reminded me of this weird bit of election campaigning that I noticed while driving through Christchurch last year during the election campaign.

The yellow sticker says “Vote Megan Woods”, “Keep Wigram Local”.

Now, election results show that the race was between Labour and National (gee what a surprise!).

The National candidate was Sam Collins.

I was born, educated and worked in Christchurch.
I have a deep connection to the city and community that has become even stronger in the aftermath of the two devastating earthquakes that have shaken our city to the core – but not beaten us!

When the earthquake struck, I was living in London – where I worked in an educational charity and policy think tank. Expats from around the city came together in horror seeing much of our beautiful city reduced to rubble. I immediately chose to return to Christchurch to see what I could do for my family, my community and my city.

So Sam:

1. Was born in Christchurch
2. Educated in Christchurch
3. Has even worked while living in Christchurch
4. Has worked in London
5. But has, at the time of the election, returned to Christchurch to live.

Woods appears to have never left – or at least has tried to give that impression.

So that means that Woods was trying to say:

1. If you want to represent a Christchurch electorate, you must have lived and worked there your entire life. Given the number of candidates Labour has parachuted into electorates over the years (Brendon Burns anyone?) , this is a slightly weird position for a Labour MP to take.
2. People who want to be an MP for a modest sized city must live in their electorate or they are not “local”. Frankly that’s a bit silly. I’ve driven through Christchurch and frankly there’s a dozen electroates there and they’re all part of one city – it’s hard to tell if you’re part if Ilam or Wigram or whatever most of the time. Suggesting that peple who live a few streets over aren’t “local” is idiotic. It’s also heavily implying that city people would have a bigotoed attitude  – I’m sure that went down  really well.

Either way, it gives off a strong whiff of a bad English comedy. You know the one, where the creepy shopkeeper tells anyone they don’t recognize “this is a local shop, for local people” even if they’re from just down the road.

I’m sure it’s just coincidence though.