Makk

If Winston Peters holds the balance, he will go with whoever offers him the most regardless of anything he says before the election... or whatever the people who vote for him actually want. Luxon has already effectively opened the door, when asked about Winston. He said he hadn't given it any thought and paid him a minor compliment (forget exactly what). This translates to "we are giving it a lot of thought and trying to work out if it is better to cut him out or whether we might need him." Winston Peters is hated by many of the national party members though and in the past NZ first has worked much better with Labour than they have with National.

The Maori party has never, ever been national. The times when they were in government with them was when the numbers didn't matter and there were other political reasons to get them in. If they actually held the balance of power they will go with Labour as more than 80% of their voters prefer that. In fact a large proportion of their voters split their vote giving Labour the party vote and the Maori party the electorate vote. This is a nightmare for National as in theory it can give Labour an advantage of up to 7% if it was split perfectly because of the extra seats although the highest it ever got to was 2 seats.

Labour have been way down from their high and are actually now trailing at the polls. With the economy expected to get worse (it doesn't feel like a recession yet) it will be hard for them to hold on. But it isn't (wasn't?) completely bleak for Labour, NZ first is on the rise again and their leader Winston Peters has effectively picked the government 3 times out of the last 7 elections getting between 3% and 10% of vote (twice labour, once national). I think it will be quite a messy and somewhat dirty election later in the year, my guess is Ardern didn't really want to be involved with that.

54 minutes ago, Brother Seamus said:

Quentyn is dead.

Euron has no control over any sell sword company in meereen or anyone else in meereen.

I strongly doubt Euron is going to Meereen.

I don't see anyone taking control of a dragon in connection with the battle of meereen.

Dany will come back well before the battle is over.

I agree with most of this but I find the bolded part extremely unlikely. Are you basing this on all the winds preview chapters that have been made public? The battle for Meereen was all but over when the chapter suddenly cut out. And there was no Dany. It is hard to judge her timeline after she flies off on Drogan in relation to the events in Meereen (we only have passages like "many days passed" to help) but potentially what you see of her last in Dance with the Dothraki and Drogan happens weeks after the battle of Meereen.

We had the chapters right up to the point the Yunkish appear to be breaking and the Ironborn have arrived, and then the preview mysteriously stopped before the end of the chapter. I think something spectacular is planned, best guess is Victarion is going to have the horn blown. No real idea what that will result in though or how Moqorro has done to it, I suspect it will drive the dragons crazy.

10 minutes ago, ServantOnIce said:

So the one thing that gives me hope for Captain Vic Greyjoy is that Euron in all his wisdom doesn't know about Moqorro and how Moqorro has deciphered the Dragon Horn.  Euron already had worked a spell so that Vic would blow it and die, while Euron controlled the dragons. Not anymore . ...   Vic is going to change the game. 

It's tricky to know how things will pan out. The dusky woman knows about Moqorro which isn't good for Vic. I would guess Euron is going to come out on top of that conflict.

A corpse stood at the prow of a ship, eyes bright in his dead face, grey lips smiling sadly. 

So is Aeron the best match for the corpse at the prow of the ship? Does it mean anything?

2 hours ago, The Grey Wolf said:

6. Arianna is so going to fall for Aegon and not like Dany. I really wonder what her and the rest of the Martell family's reaction to his death is going to be like. She's spent years thinking of him as her enemy, plotting to steal her place in Dorne, and now, without having had the chance to see him for the first time in a long time, he's gone.

I'm not so sure Arriane is going to fall for fAegon. I think it is heavily foreshadowed that Elia gets in the way or causes some sort of trouble here and I also think Arriane will ultimately understand why Daenerys isn't to blame for Quentyns death when she gets the full story. Also Arrianes first thoughts of Lysono ...

His eyes were a pale lilac, his hair a waterfall of white and gold. All the same, something about him made her skin crawl. Was this what Viserys looked like? she found herself wondering. If so perhaps it is a good thing he is dead. 

...could well be similar to what she thinks of Aegon.

What if Sweet Robin makes Harry the Heir a Rainbow knight? Is it like the kingsguard meaning he would not be allowed to marry Sansa/Alayne or be allowed to inherit?