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Wednesday, January 17, 2024

Cam Slater: The Golriz Saga and the Greens


I have been taking a well-earned break and watching the saga of Golriz Ghahraman’s political self immolation with a fair bit of schadenfreude.

At first the news leaked out via X (formerly Twitter) and on Marc Spring’s website. It was very quickly picked up by Philip Crump at NewstalkZB Plus and the rest is history. Make no mistake, it was Marc Spring who broke this news and hunted down and published key revelations often hours before the mainstream media, who were slow on the uptake and forever playing catch up.

What unfolded was a masterclass in political annihilation, ably assisted by the perpetrator herself bolting for what complicit media running Green spin lines called a “long-planned holiday”.

After repeatedly shoplifting from swanky stores, that was the worst thing she could have done. Whoever advised her to stay silent and offshore for a week while allegations slowly but surely dripped out to a news-starved nation in the middle of their holidays was a complete dolt. They should never work in public relations again.

But I say it was a masterclass because the story was drip fed over days – what I like to call ‘death by a thousand cuts’. This is how you run a competent take-down of a politician.

The steps are to make an allegation, with only enough information to suggest there is much, much more to come. You do this in the hope that the target will lie, run or go silent. You have strategies for each of those options. The truth is very powerful.

Then you feed more information into the media machine as it rumbles its way to life. Not too much though: you want a rolling maul of allegations over several days. A scandal isn’t a scandal until it has lived for more than three days.

You keep piling on the pressure, and the facts, little by little. Golriz Ghahraman played this like a chimp on a set of drums: badly. Her silence let the leakers fill the void.

The Greens’ leadership also didn’t help. Marama Davidson let the cat out of the bag with some injudicious comments about the process they went through for their strategy. She stupidly said that they remained quiet while they worked out their “plan of attack”. That reveals that the Greens actually planned to fight this.

But that all came to nothing, as Golriz’s absence buried her under a mountain of fact, photos, statements and a fair bit of innuendo. In the end, that mountain, after a week of building, was too insurmountable and she was forced to resign from Parliament.

I can’t wait for the Greens to recover from their shell shock and start their Green stormtroopers attacking on X and suggesting all manner of people responsible for the downfall of their darling, from me and dirty politics to the people they really suspect, the Israelis and Mossad. Don’t worry, it won’t take long for those accusations to be made.

They will, of course, never for one minute blame the actual person responsible: the light-fingered Golriz Ghahraman.

You know, if Golriz had been nicking trackies from KMart and fluffy slippers, we’d probably forgive her. You know, being a hard-working girl from the downtrodden classes…

But in fact she is a giant socialist weasel who was living off the public teat, but it wasn’t enough for poor little fake-ugee Golriz. She wanted more for free and so she will be pilloried as the rank hypocrite brought down by her own grandiloquence and hubris.

And the leadership of the Greens needs to be looked at. The timeline of events is not helpful for them and neither are more injudicious statements by Marama Davidson about an un-named Green “representative” who went and negotiated with Scotties. My understanding from good sources is that that “representative” tried to get Scotties to not go to the Police.

That is the real scandal!

And Ian Wishart has dropped that particular bomb.


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There is plenty more to come in this story, of that I can assure you.

Cam Slater is a New Zealand-based blogger, best known for his role in Dirty Politics and publishing the Whale Oil Beef Hooked blog, which operated from 2005 until it closed in 2019. Cam blogs regularly on the BFD - where this article was sourced.

5 comments:

Tom Logan said...

Perhaps to the contrary, they may have had some masterful public relations advice.

Let the wolves have her, just feed her to them slowly?

They might have just have out Machiavelled even, even, even you Mr Slater! They certainly didn't have too much of the moral high ground to stand on did they?

In their top ranks they muster Marama Davidson who repeatedly makes openly racist comments, Chloe, choir leader of the Hamas death chant and Mr Shaw whose dubious academic and work resume probably precludes him from working anywhere in the world other than NZ left wing politics. They certainly didn't want to defend her and risk their own grubby failings being exposed, again.

They are probably still washing the blood of their hands now. Gholriz certainly didn't need enemies when she had friends like them.

But I can imagine the conversation in the shop , " you'd look good in this......., just your size, shall I pop it in the bag?"

MC said...

Loving every minute of it! Next up James "where the fucks my BA" and that feral squarkybird Davidson. Bring it on!

Anonymous said...

this is what golriz should have said:

i'm sorry for what i did. i have no logical explanation for why i did that. it doesn't matter if i was trying to yearn for something beyond what i could afford, looking for a cheap thrill, suffering from MS, kleptomania, whatever - what i did was shameful and disgusting.

when i heard the news while on vacation, i was in a state of shock. i couldn't decide what i should do next. after coming to my senses, i decided to book the next available flight and face the public in person instead of writing excuses on social media.

i apologise unconditionally to the shop owners, their employees, NZ public, taxpayers and my party. i'll sell my house if needed to pay the dues to the shop and refund my salary to parliament since the day of my first offending (as i became undeserving of my position as an MP that day). i will seek psychiatric counselling with my own funds if needed.

i will go to the police station and surrender myself. i have done the crime, now i will do the time. please spare my family and friends as they have nothing to do with this. thank you and goodbye!

Anonymous said...

MC your comment is the funniest and only funny thing to come out of this sordid event.

Anonymous said...

A narcissistic thief caught.
Its not like she was on a left wing bender stealing food for the poor like some modern Robin Hood.... oh no...
She was caught stealing clothes from boutique stores, repeatedly.
And now gas lights the nation in such a way that renders all critique or opinion other than unequivocal support for her mental health journey open to accusations of causing her further harm. Yuk.
She even thanked her victims for their empathy ..... so woke and so very manipulative.
This plays out in two ways.
She owns her crime like an adult in court, accepts the outcome, then rebuilds her life and dignity quietly.
Or
She defends her actions as symptoms of psychosocial harm publicly, gains a discounted outcome then takes the Green Party to court for their part in her downfall I.E failing to implement effective controls to protect her houora. Then turns her journey into a commodity / book / speaking......