Strangely enough, the preening academic snobbery that jh complains of is there in spades in Bolton's self-servingly selective reading of Australian history. From having lived in Australia through the Pauline Hanson phenomenon, I can say that even the few nominal One Nation supporters…

And I’m becoming very weary of jh’s single-issue obsessions over immigration and multiculturalism.

You may want to address your complaints to someone who is, or ever has…

Pretty sure Russell didn't come in the top floor of any academic process, given that he has never even been to University. AFAIK, he worked his way up through journalism the way it used to be done, from…

Far from being the natural defenders of the working classes, modern leftist parties are in bed with the forces of globalization and big business which cares nothing about the negative impact of mass immigration on the host society, to say nothing…

Auntie Jenny has advice for those in the North....http://www.nzherald.co.nz/northern-advocate/news/article.cfm?c_id=1503450&objectid=11456986

She challenged the Northland businesswomen to abandon outdated, inherited…

That is one of the poorest suburbs in the whole country. Not average westside by any means.

I know Builders and I know Truck drivers and I know some present and past Forestry workers. ALL of them say the best timber is on…

Oops, thx for correction.

How did the list vote go in those seats?

FPP style, National took all but Kelston and the two Maori seats (in which Labour smashed them). But MMP style (and the list vote is all about MMP stylez) only Upper Harbour and Helensville went…

It's worth noting that of the 4 west auckland electorates (New Lynn, Kelston, Te Atatu and Upper Habour), Labour candidates won 3 of them.

The exception is Upper Harbour, only half of which is in west auckland anyway.

Sadly our current political dogma argues that state owned operations are always less efficient than privately owned operations.

Of course that data calls bullshit on that but…

More likely they knew perfectly well it would all fall apart and hundreds of farmers would be bankrupt.

But they…

You seem to be implying that there was a time when they could. How did that make things better?

how? who realistically has the power here?

Astute.

Compromised is the polite word ..

As such.....I'm more or less immune to Crosby-Textor. That makes me unusual / exceptional, I guess.

I think the core of the problem lies right there: a huge number of voters…

I believe (sorry, can't find a reference) that the Chinese were ordering increasingly large quantities which they stockpiled. Then they cut back their orders drastically,…

My understanding is Fonterra were actively limiting the amount that went into the auction last year – I thought it was odd at the time.

But we do! Those messages just don't get reported most of the time, because they don't fit the stereotype. The Very Serious People of NZ media have decided that National…

It's kind of built in. But I can't help but feel like it's like trying to base a party around the future of blacksmithery. What if the future of work is that there…

And yet again, past examples are becoming less and less relevant with MMP. What happened in the binary FPP system is not what will happen in the future.

While it is true that National and certain commentators have succeeded in scaring people with…

Funny how those only lasted until the election as Fonterra limited supply to keep the price up. Suddenly after the election we have a mountain of milk to get rid of and the prices have to drop again.

Is it a 1st-generation thing? If so, then it's probably because NZ was late to the party in comparison with Australia and Canada.

I ranked…

That'd be because the Democrats are the "centre-right" party in US politics. There is no left, just "right" and "much, much further right".

That doesn't sound like it will be easy to translate into specific policy.

But having the Labour Party focused on ... well ... labour, doesn't seem like a bad fit.

And I trust your judgement on that. And yet I don't feel like he stands for anything other than gaining…

Which is very much what happened during the last Labour leadership process too. These are good processes, and highly democratic ones. I recommend them.

Isaac Davidson has done an excellent job of capturing the state of the contest in its final week. What you see below is as close as…

It's had coverage. It hasn't had as much coverage, perhaps, because the candidates have not…

Andrew has a long and consistent history of working on behalf of workers, and looking for practical ways to achieve gains for workers, without at the same time demonising businesses.

a classic of English cuisine.

is that a thing? sounds interesting.

Yes, very much this. The contempt I feel for Key and National is nothing against the despair I feel that…

They impress me too, and Generation Zero is but one manifestation of their better grasp of securing change. I see a prospect of a genuine…

I think it was Russell Brown who came up with the "wait till your father gets home" state as the possible successor to the nanny state a few years back.

Even when a right wing toss pot gets caught behaving badly, the Herald still manages to get a dig in at the expense of the left.

When will we get to see…

But somehow the party manages to work together with a pretty coherent policy base and public message. Unlike the last three terms of…

I think Little actually wants to lead Labour, I just don't think he knows where to.

I still don’t understand why “Pt Chev liberals” are to blame. Don’t they have a right to their reckons like Waitakere Man does? It’s not as if they exercise some wicked mind-control on the party executive. One might think…

Ah, I get it! It's like "Epsom Dick". It's a kind of person who may not live in Epsom, but they are a dick like many who do?

The Internet.

Danyl is organising for James Shaw's campaign, and knows that there are semi-organised groups who think that the party should move in various different political directions and give more or less…

I'd say they don't really trust Little or The Greens.

It isn't so much that they want someone to beat Key, but rather they want someone who they can tell has a (to use…

However many suppression orders are in place, you can't hang on to an electorate from inside a jail.

Browning certainly seems to have been delivered by the woo faction, although he only went up one place (from 16 to 15) after the list was voted…

You both seem to have a different definition of "faction".

A party faction is a group with a varied degree of organisation, from…

Judith Collins?

do nothing

Mike Sabin?

I actually disagree with this. There have been three really big changes made to the party post the 70s. The first was in…

Maybe so, but he was also damaged by much that was well within his control. The ‘from memory’ keynote speech, the ‘Edstone’… On a visit to the UK last year I was shocked by how underwhelming, how unready for government Miliband…

To me the problem is…

IMHO Labour is not even very appealing to those it should appeal to. The parliamentary wing lacks a solid ideological platform from which to message, which is odd as some branches I know…

"It's all about fear."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ui7gnIzwUSY&hd=1

And the Republicans have only been dragged further to their right by the Tea Party crazies from within, as opposed to Labour being squeezed…

I might point out that National won the party vote at three of our suburb's four booths. And Labour only won the other one by…

The context there is a tendency for Green candidates and MPs to become very focused on appealing to the their internal membership rather than the voters, because the members are the people that get…

ETA: And Danyl and Gio in Wellington should also stop meddling.

I'd say this points to the absence of a factional system, on an evidence basis.

(Also, if you don't like the list, you could join up and vote/campaign for different people to get electable…

not if you apply your evidence based standards to one or multiple sporting codes and start your discourse from there – then you'll find an audience, one prepared to be engaged.. politics... and the stuff of the world are distractions the general public…

Um explain Steffan Browning then?

and one which her colleagues agreed to respect. Two differences there.

Which is in stark contrast to the chaos the Labour MPs have disseminated of late.

The problem is…

That's a nonsense measure of anything to do with a political party, especially under MMP. What counts is support, measured by votes gained. If you measure by non-support there have been periods in NZ history where…

If you believe they have factions, what are they called and who's in them?

Are you sure?

Mythologising any of New Zealand's (or Britain's) political parties isn't helpful. They all have faults. These faults are either constraints, or things they succeed in spite of. For parties which are rejected by 9 in…

Safety is a pretty simple thing to message around, and even these mythical…

What if first-time voters were coming on stream now that grew up in the new neoliberal, gimme-gimme-gimme…

Of course, just like Chinese industrial growth, this is completely sustainable and will continue forever. On that basis, National will retain power forever…

This will improve lives and decrease…

You're saying Steffan Browning made his list ranking on merit?

Without John Key, National have a rather unappealing and probably unelectable front bench. Labour I think have yet to find Key's match, and National may struggle with a leader who elicits less public affection, as baffling as that…

Eh? While Clark was sufficiently prodigious to have become a junior lecturer at the relatively tender age of 22, she was 29 with no parliamentary experience when the 70s ended, and had been a…

It should.

While I can see Winnie continuing to milk his anti-immigration line, the UKIP level…

some do seem to be struggling with that.

__ Whereas left-wing parties are still engaged in the endless wing civil-war over ideological purism. MPs get safe seats – or list positions – based on fealty to factions within the party or affiliates, like the unions, instead of…

1. Organisations that traditionally support left-wing political parties – notably trade unions – are at an historic low point in terms of power and resource, while organised capital, which funds their opponents, is very strong.…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_YareK6WKk

That’s actually how Lynton Crosby framed it.

The problem was there…

Sure – and if you want to frame it as "negative campaigning" then that fair enough too, but it also strikes me as a perfectly legitimate campaign to run even if you don't like the people putting it forward. Of course,…

It's still a version of "don't risk it", though. Also: Don Brash trying to get…

And which Labour did pretty effectively in 2002 and 2005 — there were plenty of people, at least…