Hard News: Limping Onwards
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I still believe Labour has a good chance of winning the next election, why?. Well, what have National actually done? The majority of those that voted for them last time because they wanted that tax cut have discovered they are actually worse off after the GST hike and rising fuel costs. We only need Bollard to up the interest rate and most of the swinging National voters will be going backwards. They will be praising Labour for installing WFF and start seeing this do nothing Government for what it is, a bunch of self entitled, nasty, mean bastards. John Key has already said he is off if he loses and that makes him look like a sore loser. Tolley looks more and more like she wants to eat children and Paula Benefit looks like she's already eaten the entire nations food. Bill English seems to be drifting on regardless of the crisis approaching and Gerry Brownlee is ready to sink his teeth into what's left of Christchurch. All Goff has to do now is smile and wave and he's ahead.
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Sofie Bribiesca, in reply to
But implying the failure to engage is all down to the voters or media as Curran did doesn’t leave much room for constructive action.
And saying outright that it’s completely the opposite, as Lew does, seems unhelpful to me as well.
I didn't read Curran like that .I did however read the lament of a Labour Party person sick of reading the garbage in Granny. So little this week about the seabed bill. See, watched it all and cant remember it's title. but I do now know there is a Parana park which has been vested to the people of Hamilton thanks to Parliament TV and no other news /TV organisation.
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Idiot Savant, in reply to
Labour had three terms Sacha, first time ever.
Ahem. First Labour Government?
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Rex Widerstrom, in reply to
Yes, which is why I commented (sarcastically) on the absurd suggestion David paid for his list position.
Much as I'd like to think it as that - because I can get my head round it - I've never believed that rumour. But that still leaves me asking... why??
Why would a movement that styled itself "the liberal party" alienate a bloc of its own support as well as commenters including myself (and I'd also consulted to it in Prebble's day), who could see much good in much of what it aimed to do?
Why would it clasp to it's bosom a conservative reactionary whose pre-selection utterance of homophobic prejudice, possibly while drunk on national television, ought to have set off alarm bells?
Garrett's potential as an MP can't have been seen as worth that risk, surely? Which is why it's so tempting to believe in a "brown paper bag full of money" scenario... because the alternative is that Act's senior decision makers have a level of political nous that makes Phil Goff's performance over the past week look like finely crafted statesmanship.
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Paul Williams, in reply to
When we meet in person, I'll tell you about the crazy right wing rally my wife and I witnessed in Venice, September 2000. Weird northern separatists - my guess, my Italian is poor - dressed like cub scouts.
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Steve Barnes, in reply to
Yes, which is why I commented (sarcastically) on the absurd suggestion David paid for his list position.
Oh, I though you were confirming it, you know money tree ism an all that.
;-) -
Paul Williams, in reply to
Ahem. First Labour Government?
Opps, and I know better.
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Idiot Savant, in reply to
I think I'm trying to point out that the voter has some responsibility here.
Quick! Dissolve the people! Elect another!
Blaming the voters may make you feel better. But its the last refuge of the politically incompetent, and comes across as terminally arrogant. Yes, we get the government we deserve. But ultimately, if a party can't convince people to vote for it, whose fault is that?
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Rex Widerstrom, in reply to
Ideally, Labour would have clearly opened up a couple of significant points of difference and they've not, yet.
They could do a lot worse than follow the advice the editorial in The Australian gave to Labor generally, and NSW Labor in particular, this past weekend, quoting from Ben Chifley's famous "light on the hill" speech back in 1949:
the success of the Labour Party at the next elections depends entirely, as it always has done, on the people who work. I try to think of the labour movement, not as putting an extra sixpence into somebody's pocket, or making somebody prime minister or premier, but as a movement bringing something better to the people, better standards of living, greater happiness to the mass of the people . . .
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Jan Farr, in reply to
Quick! Dissolve the people! Elect another!
Blaming the voters may make you feel better. But its the last refuge of the politically incompetent,
Hi Idiot Savant. Did you notice that little word 'some'? I used it on purpose.
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Craig Ranapia, in reply to
Paula Benefit looks like she’s already eaten the entire nations food.
Please, be a little more sexist and obnoxious because I'm bored with PAS being one of the more XX-safe corners of the blogosphere.
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nzlemming, in reply to
I thought it was what the staff at the organization he was about to cull called him.
As far as I can tell, the first mention of the term was from Key, himself, in a North and South interview soon after he was first elected. He said they used to call him that, but I don't recall anyone confirming it. More likely, they called him after the gender-biased source of "twatcock"...
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Steve Barnes, in reply to
Please, be a little more sexist and obnoxious because I’m bored with PAS being one of the more XX-safe corners of the blogosphere.
? How the fuck is that sexist? the woman has become obese since she has been in the house, as she is minister of welfare and forcing others to do with less, I find it abhorrent.
Sorry Craig but, hey. that’s me. -
Kumara Republic, in reply to
I think Steve B was alluding more to the stereotype of 3rd World dictators and their cronies who live happy and fat while their populace starves.
@Rex W: McVicar has always waged war with Eastasia.
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Craig Ranapia, in reply to
the woman has become obese since she has been in the house and as she is minister of welfare and forcing others to do with less I find it abhorrent.
Dude, if I've got to explain the sexism of using a woman's appearance and/or weight to denegrate, then you're just not going to get it.
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Steve Barnes, in reply to
Dude, if I’ve got to explain the sexism of using a woman’s appearance and/or weight to denigrate, then you’re just not going to get it.
Craig, you don't need to explain anything to me. Regardless of the gender of our esteemed Ministers I will give them the same lashing for their apparent excesses. You, Sir, are not up to your usual cutting form. I would have thought obnoxiousness would be seen as an admirable trait in your book.
You may have missed "Gerry Brownlee is ready to sink his teeth into what’s left of Christchurch.". or did you think that acceptable?
Now who's sexist.
;-)
ETA. Thank you DeepRed, that was my exact point. -
Blaming the voters may make you feel better. But its the last refuge of the politically incompetent, and comes across as terminally arrogant. Yes, we get the government we deserve. But ultimately, if a party can’t convince people to vote for it, whose fault is that?
You know, as a matter of moral philosophy, if Jesus Christ, Mahatma Gandhi, and Abraham Lincoln set up the Mandelaist Party of Saints Secular and Otherwise, and no one voted for them because they didn't have enough TV appearances, I reckon that the voters are at fault. I think that if you vote you have a duty to your fellow citizens to know what you're doing, and learn about policy and so-on. (Contrariwise, if you voted Fascist, no amount of talk about lacklustre Social Democrats or hard-left Communists lets you off.)
That doesn't mean that the Labour Party oughtn't do all it can to let people know what we stand for, and importantly it's our duty to our fellow citizens to do so.
(And in specific point of fact we had dissolved the German people and selected another. It was called the Second World War.)
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So - to sum everything up - time for a leadership change.
Fresh, exciting new face, unencumbered by the (recent/distant) past, new momentum, possibly, just possibly, a game-changer.
Risk of public perceiving it as desperate, last-minute, panicky stuff (aided, no doubt, by the dear old MSM). So, a high-risk strategy. Especially if Labour's core, dyed-in-the-wool-vote turns out to in fact be lower than the 30-34% they're currently polling. But I suspect ultimately Labour have nothing to lose (and quite possibly everything to gain). Could be just the thing to revitalise the Left.
The Shock of the New.
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dc_red, in reply to
So – to sum everything up – time for a leadership change.
Fresh, exciting new face, unencumbered by the (recent/distant) past, new momentum, possibly, just possibly, a game-changer.
Well, not my view: look at what Clark was polling 2.5 years after taking the leadership (hint: it was a minor miracle Labour got to 28% of the vote in 1996). Goff could become a great leader, and PM, but he needs a more active, industrious caucus … and a better deputy.
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Mr Mark, in reply to
Yeah, I seem to remember they were polling in the mid/late-teens (behind NZ First) going into the 96 election campaign.
Labour's ultimate 28%: all down to Clark's very well-received TV Election-debate performances.
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A circuit breaker is needed and I’m still inclined to agree with dc_red earlier. It mightn’t be the Leader who has to change.
It might not be the leader who has to change. But the party needs to wake up to reality, realise they're failing and determine to make changes. Instead they seem willing to blunder on, moaning about how mean the media is and irritably wondering when the electorate is going to 'wake up' and vote them back into their rightful place as the government.
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Jackie Clark, in reply to
Steve. Steve. No. You are not allowed to comment on peoples' bodies. Ever. NOT OKAY. Sincerely, me.
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Russell Brown, in reply to
Instead they seem willing to blunder on, moaning about how mean the media is and irritably wondering when the electorate is going to ‘wake up’ and vote them back into their rightful place as the government.
However much you love that one, it might be time to make another point.
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Russell Brown, in reply to
Yeah, I seem to remember they were polling in the mid/late-teens (behind NZ First) going into the 96 election campaign.
Why, I believe Chris Trotter even hailed the impending demise of the Labour Party :-)
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Sacha, in reply to
they used to call him that, but I don't recall anyone confirming it
Had personal confirmation from someone who used to work there - who also reminded me that the guys calling Key the smiling assassin were big-swinging-dick money traders not known for their fear. Scary chap apparently. See a taste of it when the Tranzrail eyes come on..
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