Authorities in New Zealand have turned to the greatest hits by Barry Manilow and James Blunt in an attempt to dislodge COVID-19 demonstrators from outside the Parliament building at Wellington in the country’s North Island.
Songs by the US hitmaker including ‘I Write the Songs’, ‘Mandy’, ‘Copacabana’ and ‘Could It Be Magic’, and Blunt’s ‘You’re Beautiful’ and ‘Goodbye My Lover’, were played on a 15-minute loop, along with Los del Río’s famous dance tune, ‘Macarena’. Blunt even offered to sing in public.
It’s not the first time New Zealand powerbrokers have turned to Manilow to make a point. In 2009, at Christchurch, a city in the South Island, his songs were used to deter teenagers loitering in shopping malls at night.
But the protesters – who are against Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s vaccination mandate for certain workers including teachers, doctors, nurses, police and military personnel – were undeterred, instead singing and dancing to the endless rotation in the heavy rain.
The protests began last Tuesday when a convoy of vehicles drove to Parliament. Inspired by large rallies against vaccine mandates in Canada, hundreds of protesters then arrived in the capital, blocking streets.
With the demonstration entering its 11th day, the NZ Government yesterday called a national security crisis meeting.
Could they be preparing to deploy the ‘big guns’? It may be time for ‘Who Let the Dogs Out’.
