"A new concept for John Key. It's called a principle." (Updated)

Liberty Scott has "a new concept for John Key.  It's called a principle."

Obviously not something seen a lot around John Boy's office.  Rarely to be observed in National's policy manifesto.  And Certainly nowhere in evidence in his latest flip flop:  National's promise to abolish the Maori seats was one of the few remaining policies on which John Boy still hadn't backed down, so it comes as no surprise to see him finally get on to it.  His new policy is to hold off abolishing the race-based seats until all the treaty grievances that can be dreamed up by the grievance warriors -- every single one of them -- has wended its way through all the lawyers' offices of New Zealand. 

As Scott says, offering the backdown in this particular form offers a significant incentive to all the gravy train riders to keep the train right on rolling, and is presumably a prelude to making coalition deals with the Maori Party.

If a vote for Labour gets you a communist or two for no extra charge, looks like a vote for National this year gets you a tribalist who believes that the chief problem for most Maori is that they suffer from  “Post-Colonial Traumatic Stress Disorder,” and that the holocaust happened in Taranaki.

If you thought it was absurd yesterday to see Key hongi-ing the leader of an armed group who talked abut assassinating him, just think about him hongi-ing Tariana Turia later in the year as he welcomes the woman who was considered too unstable for a seat at Helen Clark's cabinet table to a seat around his.

UPDATE: Lindsay Perigo is at his deliciously acerbic best in describing yesterday's Key Waitangi shenanigans:

Yesterday’s Waitangi Day celebrations, acclaimed by the media as the most peaceful in a long while, were actually the most sickening ever.

They plainly confirmed the voluntary servitude of the media to Mordi separatists and the dearth of decency among mainstream politicians. In fact, the only one who came through with her dignity intact was Helen Clark.

First was the revolting spectacle of John Key, now double-jointed from all his recent flip-flopping, brown-nosing one of the specimens implicated in the proposal to assassinate him. Craven cowardice doesn’t come any more craven and cowardly than this.

Then came the brown-nosing of the same wannabe terrorist and his family and other co-conspirators by TVNZ’s Close Up programme, which had paid some of the expenses of these creatures. Close-Up was simply wall-to-wall Harawira/Iti, including nauseating genuflection by reporter Janes and presenter Sainsbury...

Read on here for Perigo's full report.