Hard News: The sole party of government
631 Responses
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Bart Janssen, in reply to
People like Goff, Mallard, King, Dyson, but don’t like the Labour Party. So they’ll vote for those MPs, but not the Party. It’s a big problem for Labour.
So you can do what DC just did and say we know you like these guys and what they stand for but Labour is now going to be this, ta dah. And the result was ...
Or you can say OK here's what people actually want from Labour - lets actually give them what they want and maybe they will vote for us.
I'm not saying which option is right but rather pointing out that the current strategy would seem to indicate the Labour party is headed on a track to become a minor party. If that is true, and it's a valid option if you absolutely are convinced of your ideology, then it seems to me there is room for yet another centre left party. One that believes in the things that those centre left voters actually want to get out of their homes and vote for. Those voters seem to be unrepresented in any way in the current parliament.
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Email
I hate to suggest this, but perhaps there's a significant fraction of National voters who think that Goff, Mallard and King are excellent National party candidates.
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I mean I don't actually have a sophisticated analysis of why that vote split happens. But it does and it's probably pointing towards something interesting and useful to understand.
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JonathanM, in reply to
Agreed. Unfortunately, the Nats could keep just saying it over and over again (Kim Dotcom!) and if you repeat it enough, it embeds in folks minds.
Anecdotally I met a bunch of people who were turned off the left by that. Not that it's an excuse: regardless Labour's result is dismal.
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Email Web
looking at the results here in Dunedin I can see two things. Firstly almost all of Winston's votes came from Labour. Secondly people vote FPP in electorates and MMP in the local party vote ... those on the left choose the left wing electorate candidate they think can win in an FPP race
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Amanda Wreckonwith, in reply to
'So you can do what DC just did and say we know you like these guys and what they stand for but Labour is now going to be this, ta dah.'
But did anyone outside the twitterati actually know what the 'ta dah' Labour Party was?
I'll be buggered if anyone around me knew. They are still stuck on 'nanny state' and 'Helengrad' thanks to a diet of talk back radio and Jim Mora sponsored, balanced debate. -
Bart Janssen, in reply to
But it does and it’s probably pointing towards something interesting and useful to understand.
Yeah I agree entirely.
And I have to emphasise my thoughts are only my guesses and I really have no certainty that I know anything after this election.
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RG,
On Mt Roskill electorate the concept that it is heartland labour is just wrong. The centre of the electorate, Mt Roskill & Mt Albert are low income areas and are heartland areas. But the fringes, Hillsborough, Mt Eden, Three Kings, Lynfield are all becoming/have become upper middle class as state houses are converted into do-ups.
At current rates I would expect Month Roskill to be a safe national seat in 20years, with the low decile population moving out West/South in a similar manner to what happened in Ponsonby. -
Email
Another possibility that seems unsuggested is that National voters tactically voted to keep the most right wing Labour candidates in, because they know just how divided that it will make Labour. When you're in a safe Labour seat with the guy who destroyed free tertiary education in this country, you might think it's an excellent insurance policy to vote for him.
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Amanda Wreckonwith, in reply to
...pushed the idea that not voting was a really good idea.
Surprised that I haven't heard anyone mention the anti-democratic sentiment beamed through channel FOUR over the last few weeks. The constant ridiculing of political participation could have come straight from National Party HQ.
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Sofie Bribiesca, in reply to
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Also the Indian community had an Indian doctor representing National. The billboard of Key and her saying Party Vote National may have helped Goff lose support on the Party vote. If people aren't sure ,familiarity helps.
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Greg Dawson, in reply to
People like Goff, Mallard, King, Dyson, but don’t like the Labour Party. So they’ll vote for those MPs, but not the Party.
Not necessarily true. I held my nose and voted for Mallard in Hutt South, despite being inclined to see the back of him, because there's no way I could vote for Tobacco Weasel.
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BenWilson, in reply to
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That shit is why I don't watch TV news. It was quite horrible to have to do it last night.
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Given the (second) total and devastating rejection of the Labour party as envisioned by the PAS liberal elite, why would anyone even bother reading the prescriptions here? A lot of people still don’t get it. The Labour party created under the iron grip of Helen Clark in the 1990s to paper over the ideological victory of neo-liberalism fell apart when she left and has been rejected, twice. A third time will be fatal. I am sorry, but the PAS view of progressive politics had been tried and found to be an utter catastrophe.
The time of reckoning for Labour, first for betraying it's voters with the neo-liberal revolution then for selling out and going up the blind alley of identity politics, is now at hand.
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Greg Dawson, in reply to
It seems to me that the problem this election is just the same as the last one – that basically the youth didn’t vote. I’d love to be corrected, but it looks like that problem only got worse this time.
But the clear message is that voting is just about how much money you can get for your house, and there is no way in hell anyone under 30 can afford a house.
It's an old peoples game, innit.
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Email
Shod, by both sides...
When you say 'the sole party',
you don't mean the downtrodden do you...... it's all on the 'uppers' this time!
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Amanda Wreckonwith, in reply to
surely it has been rejected three times already? like National was after Shipley?
but hey what would we elitists know…
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Keir Leslie, in reply to
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Well yeah, Dyson wins Port Hills by winning the swing National/Labour voters you need to win to win an election. That's not a bad thing. Also Dyson is not on the right of the Party so the suggestion it is National voters voting to keep Labour right is not very powerful I don't think.
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BenWilson, in reply to
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Also Dyson is not on the right of the Party so the suggestion it is National voters voting to keep Labour right is not very powerful I don’t think.
It's worth considering, before you get all upset about all the Labour support strangely voting National, to look at the possibility that it's actually National support voting Labour, because they realize that electorates don't matter, but keeping Labour old and divided does.
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Sofie Bribiesca, in reply to
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The sky Tower was draped in blue light last night at 6 pm. Nothing to see there but a sea of blue
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Again, that doesn't explain Port Hills, it assumes voters are co-ordinated strategic geniuses of an absurd level, it's just nonsense.
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BenWilson, in reply to
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The time of reckoning for Labour, first for betraying it’s voters with the neo-liberal revolution then for selling out and going up the blind alley of identity politics, is now at hand
Sounds all very biblical. What do you actually think they should do, though? I don't really have much interest in advising them, because I don't think they're even amenable to such advice, contrary to what you might think about who runs them. It sure isn't the PAS team, who mostly don't even vote for them. But I'd be keen to hear your ideas, now that we've got the customary slag on the whole community out of the way.
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Tom Semmens, in reply to
I am not counting the election Clark lost because she dominated the party in a way that ensured discipline.
And if you think I am exaggerating the scale of the rejection of the current Labour party and the domination of liberal identity politics, look at Rangitikei, a seat contested in 2011 by none other than Josie Pagani and this time by that favourite daughter of PAS Deborah Russell. In 2011 Pagani got 8902 electorate votes and Labour got 6723 party vote. In 2013 Russell managed 8521 votes and a derisory 5673 party votes for Labour. Yet Deborah Russell was touted as a great candidate, someone with a bright future. Wrong candidate for the seat, pure and simple. A local farmer would have been better.
What idiot couldn't see that an university feminist academic was not the ideal candidate for a rural conservative seat? As it is, she has probably had it now, because she failed politics 101 of doing well in an unwinnable seat before promotion.
You could make the same argument for Tamati Coffey - the wrong candidate in the wrong seat for the mood of the electorate who did nothing to dent National despite being "high profile". At least he didn't go backwards.
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Also: loud and self-assured pontifications based on ex-recto evidence is part of the problem not part of the solution. Self-doubt, humility, listening not talking, those are the kinds of attitudes the left needs now, not apocalyptic echo chambers.
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They did not welcome or trust the change Labour was offering.
True. What was that change, by the way? Off the top of your head? Non-specific answers involving "change" and "not like National" aren't valid, you know. The messaging, I didn't hear it.
If I was to get snarky (heavens forfend), I'd point out that "vote positive" worked out pretty well for National's highly positive campaign slogans, as against Labour's kinda mealy ones. Kept the team that's working, eh.
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