Posts by Keir Leslie
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Toby worked for the Guardian in the UK, managing their comment pages, I think. Which, well, someone give that guy a medal.
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Hard News: The humanity, in reply to Alex Coleman,
Yeah I've made it quite clear I don't approve of that sort of behaviour, whether it's Cunliffe or Nash or Mallard or god knows who doing it. That's part of the point: the next leader has to be someone who isn't divisive and who has the ability to stop that behaviour from occurring.
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Hard News: The humanity, in reply to Alex Coleman,
This is kind of long, and messy, but anyway.
Anonymous briefings to the press and other attempts at destabilisation are not at all helpful. This is true whether the leader is Phil Goff, David Shearer, or David Cunliffe. David Cunliffe, in particular, has significant form undermining Labour leaders who are not him, and this is a black mark on his record.
Several other MPs and not-MPs have lacked discipline, and this is also not acceptable. Stuart Nash, in particular, needs to pull his damn head in and realise that the party is bigger than he is.
These stories have in fact been very well covered by the press, both Cunliffe's indiscretions and other MPs'. I actually wish they hadn't been so well covered, but whatever, that is what happens when there's a lack of discipline.
The inability of both Cunliffe and other MPs to handle losing is a major issue. It is something the Party as a whole will need to work on with the next leader.
But at the same time, a majority of caucus have been well disciplined and haven't gone running to the media. There is also a majority of caucus who think Cunliffe needs to consider his position. The intersection of those two positions is also a majority in caucus.
Now, Cunliffe doesn't have the backing of the settled will of the Party - that is why he is seeking re-election. He has accepted he needs to seek a new mandate from the party. As part of that process, I think the party should think about which contenders for the leadership have been loyal and worked hard for the party, no matter who the leader was, and which have placed personal ambition first.
It is also possible that Cunliffe is not the leader who is able to bring caucus and party together. It is possible that as a very divisive figure who has struggled to be loyal and accepting of party decisions in the past himself, he needs to accept that may be a thing he can't do, and put the good of the party first.
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The leadership of Labour Party however isn’t a matter where they need to be accountable to the public.
Actually it kinda is a job where they need to be accountable to the public. And the Party. And MPs. And that's why it's a really hard job, and why people who can't meet the demands should consider moving on.
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Hard News: The sole party of government, in reply to Stephen Judd,
It didn't help that the membership involvement in selection reform had been whittled down to nothing and NZ Council was trying a blatant power grab elsewhere in the proposals.
None of the proposals saw anything as vulgar as a vote at any regional conferences, which meant that a lot of people were astonished at how little support the proposals had within the Party when they first met resistance. The coalition to take them the reforms through the party / public just wasn't built.
It was a really shocking way of handling major and important reforms, and was not good work by NZ Council & the Party President.
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Right. So Harawira jumped in bed with a hugely unlikeable millionaire, and didm't even get any money for his trouble? I see the problem.
Fundamentally, Kelvin Davis was always running to win Te Tai Tokerau, he fought hard, and the voters of TTT said they'd rather have Davis than Harawira. That's electoral politics. And if Davis was better at managing his money, better at running a campaign? That's not cheating, that's politics.
Look, I'm kinda sad that Mana's gone. But they have no one to blame but themselves.
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Hang on, Hone Harawira, bankrolled to the tune of ~3 million dollars, is complaining the cash strapped Labour Party outspent him? Well, that's his problem really.
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Hard News: Five further thoughts, in reply to George Darroch,
Yeah. But this is the line that the Labour right will be running over the next few weeks: we gave the unions and the left their chance, and look what happened. Worst result ever. The only people who did well were Nash and Davis, who ran on pretty centrist platforms.
The stuff about Nash/Davis is bollocks, but the party did give the unions/left their guy, and he fucked up. Inevitably there's going to be push back.
The Labour left needs to pull itself together and actually think about what the hell it is up to, and seriously reconsider its stance, because whatever Greg Presland and Martyn Bradbury are selling, the voters aren't buying.
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The people who are voting Labour candidate in Epsom or Green candidate in Ohariu will either be (a) very principled and impossible to sway or (b) low-information voters who don't know what they are doing. Inherently, there is almost nothing political parties can do to change the behaviour of those voters.
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Hard News: The sole party of government, in reply to Farmer Green,
But, ok, Deborah's job is basically to talk to Labour and likely Labour voters in her seat, and make sure they vote (and for her). You aren't in either of those groups, realistically, so I wouldn't expect her to be having many conversations with you. It's nothing personal, but it sounds like she was talking to the right people in Rangitikei.