Both leader new to politics and both invented their own parties   A French election transposed on New Zealand would result in a victory for Gareth Morgan's new political party.. Interest in election outcome transfer has so far covered the British general election. But a scrutiny of the result of the French presidential election won outright by Emmanuel Macron and then of the ensuing French parliamentary election also won outright by his party demonstrates a dream that on face value could only be achieved by Gareth Morgan. Here now are the similarities:- *President Macron had never stood before as a…

Five Question for UK vicar in British Industrial Heartland .........  Reverend Graham Sawyer (pictured) is well known in New Zealand as a BBC commentator, educator, and cleric. He is now a vicar currently based in the north of England. He now answers our Five Questions .... 1. You have been a Parliamentary candidate -and now you are a man of the cloth. Is the approach to religious extremism by the various authorities the correct one? No. The response has been to create a climate of fear and to suggest that the "government" is protecting us. In fact, the cause of…

They foolishly counseled the sidestepping of domestic issues especially the one of the crazed assassins active on UK streets  From the MSCNewsWire European Correspondent- Jun 10: Failure to identify priority issues has sunk UK premier Theresa May’s objective of attaining a decisive Parliamentary majority. Chief among them was a startling inability to confront the religious fanatic murders of passers-by in British cities. This was covered by a wooden de-personalisation spectacular even by English bureaucratic standards. It was officially delegated to the abstract as “attacks on democracy.” Unbelievably these assassinations invoked a policy decision by the Conservatives to cut back on…

Five Questions for Mayfair arbiter of Fine Living From MSCNewsWire's European Corespondent: Laurence Davis is a by-word in London for fine living and his dealings with Cuba have bestowed on him an aura in the UK redolent of that conjured up by fellow Briton the novelist Graham Greene. The façade of Sautter of Mount Street remains among London’s most famous hallmark store-fronts. For cigar afficionados the Mayfair store is the ultimate destination of any vintage pilgrimage. MSC Newswire entered this high temple of connoisseurship and posed Five Questions to Mr Davis who is pictured outside his store. . You were…

Live and let live communitarism has failed - - so will other naïve and ineffectual containment policies The last round of London attacks draws attention again to what politicians and top-level law enforcement officials understand to be the only solution to religiously-inspired assassinations. This is that the relatives of perpetrators are returned to their countries of origin. Britain continues to be the Western nation most confused by this terrorism and this is characterised by a number of symbolic responses such as putting symbolically out into the streets armed police and soldiers when the authorities know that the lethal problem is…

Employment figures are no longer trusted  The imminent British general election has in common with the pending New Zealand general election that both elections will swing on the issue of immigration rather than the face value and rather more acceptable and perennial matter of trade and the economy. In Britain the topic hinges often unspokenly on the nation’s ability to accommodate immigrants in the refugee category. In New Zealand the issue is a wider one and encompasses especially the demand-over-supply pressure that liberal immigration policies have on infrastructure in general and residential accommodation in particular. In Britain the issue devolves…

New Zealand’s Most Famous Tabloid Editor Said it Does not Exist in the First Place   New Zealand’s last tough-talking Front Page era editor, the late Frank Haden, declared that the press in any official court room or other such tribunal would always emerge much the worse for the experience. Therefore he stated the press should take every precaution against appearing before such a body for any kind of judgement at all. The reason for avoiding court rooms and the like he stated was that “the public hates the press.” This meant in practical terms that those seeking to represent…

Email followed on heels of major international flap A scam email today is the latest in a concerted fakes sent out to Xtra users. The current one (see below) is filled with grammatical and spelling mistakes that reveal it as a fake.  It follows a similar email drop last week (see below) inviting recipients to access a fake Westpac site. The barrage pin points the need for a central bank 0800 query pool on suspect emails. The email followed on the tail of the global WannaCry cyber attack and at a time when New Zealand households still remain plagued by…

Promo emails in middle of Mother of All Hacking Attacks  What was Spark thinking when on Sunday it released to its Xtra email subscribers a promo message from its entertainment operation Lightbox? The emergency over the global WannaCry hack was sounded at 2030 hrs on the Friday just before. This should have conveyed the message to the entertainment subsidiary that this was most definitely not the time to start a mass promo over email –especially over your own circuits. And have given the unit plenty of time to intercept any such planned scheme. Several days, in fact. But out the…

Incident Points up Danger of Microsoft Windows Standardisation, Dependence.   The failure of the global extortion cyber attack to get a foothold in New Zealand vindicates the value of the continuous system upgrades that from the outset of the information technology era has been a characteristic of the institutional information technology scene here, notably that of governmental services. The ransomware attack, as it is known, notably attacked Britain’s National Health Service. Here it penetrated especially the service-to-patient delivery systems in health trusts. Services affected include picture archiving communication systems for x-ray images, pathology test results, phone and bleep systems and…

Mass Scam Follows Xtra Security Overhaul MSC Newswire has taken up with Spark how a counterfeit email seemingly from Spark itself and with the subject line title "Dear Xtra Spark Email User” had been able in fact to make the transit of Spark’s own security-enhanced messaging service. The issue was taken up with Spark in the morning of Monday May 8. No response had been received by the close of the business day on Thursday May 11. Astonishingly while MSC Newswire was talking to the Spark official and referring online on their mailbox to this counterfeit email unwanted pop-ups appeared…