The Pricks for 2011 - Blog Awards

I think I missed these last year due to lack of interest (mine), but there has been so much going on this year we will relaunch with the awarding of my (sometimes) annual Prick(le)s awarded for excellence in the below fields.


The Unfortunate Prick Award for Being So Close - The Labour Party

Everyone forgets in the mull-up that Labour were just two seats away from having a clear centre-left coalition stopping asset sales, bring in CGT and tinkering while Rome burns on fruit and veges. Despite hemorrhaging vote to the Greens this would not have made a difference to Phil Goff's chance of being PM thanks to the stupidity of MMP. I was at the Nats election night parties in 2008 and 2011 and they were very different. The 2011 party was not one of joy, it was one of relief. If you had wanted to punish Labour you couldn't do so more than having them come this close.

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Prick Award for Staff Management - Adam "Five Fingers" Feeley

Not only did Five Fingers pinch the Gosset with all the drama going with that, the incident brought out one of the most curious cases of 2011, that of Anita Killeen. Whom we are meant to believe fucked up her highly promising and high-flying professional life to get back professionally at Five Fingers. In the middle of all this Five Fingers had time to not advance much in the Hanover case, oversaw the death of Allan Hubbard and lead to Whaleoil's tipline being busier than ever with allegations of his curious behaviour.

The Limp Panty Waisting Prick Award for Being a Limp Panty Waisting Editor - David Kemeys

Not content with running a shit as dull paper the SST (aka slowly sinking tabloid) into the ground, Kemes was the idiot who showed mercurial Steve Braunias the door and made life impossible for Jonathan Marshall after he had the temerity to strongly investigate Kings College drunkards at After Ball Parties and Darren Hughes after his sleep-over at Annette's.

The Busiest Prick Award for Political Repeating - Garner and Gower tied

The terrible two-some burst their loads at each other in the final weeks of the campaign with Teagate competing to see who could test the law first by baiting Winston Peters. Like some cheap double act at a strip club as a pairing they are too much. One needs to go. With Gower's terrible whinging at ACT/United and National deals he never balanced it with the horror show of Green candidates such as Denise Roche actively backing her Labour opponent in the seat. Garner is credited by many as the reason Winston is back. Thanks Dunc.

The Impotent Prick Award for Worst Performance In An Election Campaign - National's Creative Team

Shocking. Labour had the best creative team and didn't win as they had the least charismatic Leader but National's creative work was appalling. They need to be outed and disciplined within the advertising industry.

The Smallest Prick Award for Political Silliness - Don Brash

Not content with sticking to rooting unsuitable women, Don switched to do so to an entire political party with 15 years of history and multi-millions invested in it. Good luck getting back with the Missus after that clusterfuck.

The Elephant Prick Award for Common Sense - Barry Colman

Colman had the balls to stand up and poo poo the myth of inequality back in July. The exploitation of this myth was then compounded by the Labour Party and left politicians all year. The voters spoke, National was returned as they still outweighed buy-a-vote policy favourites from the welfarists. How long net beneficiaries can stay the voting minority however is anyone's guess.

The Loudest Prick Award for Blatant Continual Shit Stirring - Whaleoil

There is too much material to list here. No one on the internet in New Zealand politics is louder, ruder or often more tongue in cheek hypocritical than the Whale. Only Whaleoil can hurl abuse at the Labour Party then call them "nasty" when they hurl shit and abuse back. Between breaking many stories this year and being the cause of Union strikes, Whale has exceeded expectations from even his friends and allies for being completely and utterly outrageous in the wooden spooning of shit.

The Disappearing Prick Award for blogging underachievement - David Farrar

David? Where art thou David? If your face was full up in a pile of muff we may have forgiven you but you have been largely absent this year with other stuff on your mind. We end the year with pictures from Safari in Africa. By far David's best series of posts of the year after some short spurts post election. A much larger effort is required in 2012 from our Jedi Grand Master Yoga.

"The Supreme Prick" Blog and Bloggers of the Year - Red Alert(ers)

They won this one off me back in 2009 and not much has changed since then. In terms of New Zealand political blogs it provides the best commentary because it is coming straight from the horse's mouth (oops did I really say that?).

Red Alert has become so successful that it has collected many critics. Often the harshest from those within Labour who do not think MP's should interact in the fashion they do on the site and through social media. Grasping at straws some grumpy old commentators believe Red Alert puts voters off Labour and their MP's shouldn't be on twitter.

Nonsense. Having a hapless goober of a communicator as a Leader and a policy platform that the heaving pathetic underclass usually voting Labour or did not understand put them off in 2011. And it will continue to put them off in 2012 because that hasn't changed either.

Red Alert has developed into a must read as the ultimate opposition blog. Labour people read it in their community in a different way than the VRWC view it. I read it as some would a daily affirmation. A motivational tool as to why I need to work even harder to oppose everything they stand for.

However it remains New Zealand's best political blog which should evolve further in 2012 down whatever path its team chooses it.