When memes go wrong | The Jackal

7 Aug 2017

When memes go wrong

It seems the National party is feeling the burn after Labour’s deputy leader, Kelvin Davis, criticised a number of their front bench on Q+A yesterday.

Being unable to attack Jacinda Ardern directly, National have decided to instead play the moral high ground card and pretend dirty politics never happened.

Yesterday, the NZ Herald reported:

PM on rock comparison: Labour positivity 'lasted three days' 
Prime Minister Bill English has responded to having his personality compared to that of a rock by Labour's deputy leader - saying their new positive approach under Jacinda Ardern "lasted about three days".

Actually, Ardern’s positive approach hasn’t transpired just yet… as much as the National party and their media minders would like it to.

English said he wasn't offended by the comments but they were negative and cynical. Transport Minister Simon Bridges added his own rebuttal: "I don't use Brylcreem. I'm just saying".

If Bridges doesn't use Brylcreem, what does he use then? The mind boggles.

The National Party also responded to Davis' rock insult on Twitter, posting a photo of English with the caption, "this 'rock' got us through the global financial crisis".

There is also a very funny #EnglishRockSongs hashtag trending on Twitter.

It’s pretty obvious that Kelvin Davis’ comments did cause National some offence, otherwise they wouldn’t have worried about complaining to the mainstream media and posting their ill-advised ‘Rock’ meme on Twitter.

The right wing is very thin skinned and cannot handle criticism. In fact they tried to distance themselves from their very negative attack politics on websites like Whale Oil Beef Hooked by allowing Cameron Slater to post their nasty articles under his name.

National certainly don’t know how to counter the large amount of mirth being generated at their expense. Whether this results in any shift in the polls is yet to be seen, but one thing is for sure… the Jacinda effect has got National rattled.