How did I do? (Patreon)

It's been wild. 2020 eh? Strange times.

I saw Finlay MacDonald tweet asking that columnists list what they got wrong this year. I thought that's a good idea. So, I've been reading back over what I wrote.

While I still wrote for the Herald, I said that foreign policy was shaping up to play an important role in this year's election. I think I got that really really wrong. Unless you count the global spread of a virus to be foreign policy.

In the same column I said we had some tricky questions we needed to answer, like our stance on immigration. Ummm.

I covered the Labour Party's attempt to win us all over with infrastructure announcements, highlighting that under National, unless your name was Ron, you wouldn't get a look in. That one held together pretty well, under the 53 different leaders National went through this year.

Just before Covid got really big, I made the case that the election was looking like it would be an election of comfort. Who would provide voters with the most stability and comfort in times of international turmoil? I think I nailed this. Though I didn't boil it down to one issue, but rather a suite of international problems. In the end it was Covid Covid Covid. I did say that Ardern had the advantage in this situation given her excellence in a time of crisis and how the country had come to trust and depend on her. I blotted my marks on this one by saying it would be a shootout between Bridges and Ardern on who would provide the most comfort. Not even I predicted the complete shitstorm that would envelop the Nats.

In other stories that happened this year, I didn't think the Green School was a particularly big story, but then it just kept going and going and going. And then James apologised for it and it kept going some more. So, my ability to pick a big story was shit. However, I now maintain that the whole debacle was a net positive for the Greens. They got more media coverage than they have in a long time, and we got to see real integrity and vulnerability from James when he apologised and said he was worried the party wouldn't get 5%.

When Todd Muller became leader of National, I said I was underwhelmed and despite some glowing media reports he just reminded me of David Shearer. This was probably my best assessment of the year.

My worst assessment was to assume, like practically everyone else, that the polls would tighten when Labour started getting above 50 and National below 30. I did have conversations with people where I said that there was no reason why the polls would tighten, but I didn't commit that to page. So, fail for that one Dave.

Other shockers that I had was the belief that Labour would do a transformational budget because of Covid. They didn't. I described it after the fact as a conventional Labour budget but with extra zeroes. Optimistic Dave said, "The tax system is going to have to be rejigged". Hahaha. Nope.

This post is actually worth re-reading if you want, it's my laundry list of shit I wanted to see. We got none of it.

I also covered a speech Bill English gave where he said that if the sharemarket didn't match the crashing of other parts of the economy, people might realise it's fucky. We might figure out that it's completely rigged against us as workers and that it's designed to completely benefit wealth-holders.

Well, the sharemarket has continued to grow despite everything. But we haven't really seen any unrest at it. So, I'm wrong, but Bill English is wrong-er.

I'll do my year in review of actual politicians soon. This one was just about me.