It must be embarrassing for Labour that Jim Anderton has again trotted out the failed idea of a financial transactions tax, Treasurer Bill English said today.

No one apart from the Alliance thinks it’s a good idea. No one apart from the Alliance thinks it will work. Mr Anderton is like a dog with a bone on this issue.

But if Jim Anderton is going to help Labour become the next government, as Helen Clark says, she’s not going to be able to say no to all of his loopy ideas.

The question is, which ones is she going to support? If not the financial transaction tax, then what about capital gains and wealth taxes? If not that, what about reversing the tax cuts? Or the extra $2,500,000,000 a year in spending?

Labour’s problem is it can’t say no to Jim Anderton forever.

Ends

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Gordon Campbell: On the Sony cyber attack

Given the layers of meta-irony involved, the saga of the Sony cyber attack seemed at the outset more like a snarky European art film than a popcorn entry at the multiplex.

Yet now with (a) President Barack Obama weighing in on the side of artistic freedom and calling for the US to make a ‘proportionate response’quickly followed by (b) North Korea’s entire Internet service going down, and with both these events being followed by (c) Sony deciding to backtrack and release The Interview film that had made it a target for the dastardly North Koreans in the first place, then ay caramba…the whole world will now be watching how this affair pans out. More>>