Trotter gets served

At that copious scoop website, John Minto has given Chris Trotter a bit of a serve over his shrill and pompous apologies for police actions over the past fortnight. In the process, Minto gives us an insight into the fantasy world of the Keystone Cops:

I had the experience of sitting through a bail hearing for Rongomai Bailey last week. Despite being arrested on arms charges including being in possession of a Molotov cocktail the police agreed they were unable to produce any evidence he had ever even touched a weapon. They did produce surveillance transcripts of two bugged car journeys (which incidentally are inadmissible on the arms charges). The evidence itself is suppressed but suffice to say there was nothing in even the "juiciest" bits read to court in relation to Rongomai that would not be heard at any gun club in New Zealand on a Saturday afternoon.

I'm sure the police will come up with a few headlines (Jamie Lockett "declaring war on New Zealand" was one) as time passes but I doubt any kind of credible terrorist threat will emerge despite it already being a reality in what seems to be your somewhat fevered imagination.

Minto ventures a tentative explanation for Trotter's support for the police:

People who know you better than me tell me the problem is you are not connected in any meaningful way to any groups active in any particular issues so that your commentary is often theoretical and disconnected from daily struggle. I don't know if this is true but it seems the only explanation that makes any sense to me.

I can't see how this makes any sense. From what I've seen, Chris Trotter's writing is seldom 'disconnected from daily struggle'. The problem is that Trotter's 'daily struggle' is to get his mates in the Labour Party re-elected, and his take on issues tends to reflect this fact.

Next weekend Trotter will be serving up more of his soggy New Labourism as a 'guest' speaker at the party's conference in Takapuna's Bruce Mason Centre. If you want to hear why Tony Blair counts as a lefty (rumour has it that he parts his hair on the left side), why the invasion of Afghanistan was a war of liberation, and why Tame Iti is Hitler, then you'd better start hustling for a delegate's ticket. If you want to be an extremist and stick up for the right to a fair trial and an end to massive and unjustified police raids on Maori communities, then you should give Trotter a miss and join the protesters outside the Centre. Get the details for that protest and other upcoming events, including a three hour Thursday night radio show on the raids, here.