Thursday 22 August 2013

Where to now for Labour?

Labour leader David Shearer—who was voted in by Labour members only 2 years ago—has resigned today, citing a lack of full support from his caucus colleagues.

That’s putting it mildly.

Over the last two years his caucus colleagues, especially the three listed below, have directed more fire at Shearer from behind the scenes than they have in the open across the aisle at Key.

So where to now for the rudderless Labour Party, under which of the colleagues who’ve spent the last three years rat-fucking their elected leader?

Back to 60s unionism with Andrew Little?

Back to Clarkist anti-corporate interventionism with David Cunliffe?

Or back to the disingenuous Rowling-lite slipperiness of Grant Robertson?

Would you want to buy a used car from any of them?

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Perhaps if the car were cheap enough and still going so that I could run the 3 over
Peter89

B Whitehead said...

They need another Timmy......

AngryTory said...

who gives a shit.

hopefully they go out of existence, as across most of the "welfare west" politics are at last turning decisively away from communism.


But really you're missing the structural forces underlying this: the reason Labour can't get any traction (even though under MMP they're within a couple o percent of a winning coalition) is that any Labour policy is immediately adopted and enacted by National. School meals, Train Loop, "affordable" housing to name three recent ones: all started as Labour/Green policies - but all ended up in National legislation. Even the fuss about the GCSB law just goes to show that in terms of actual, enacted, policies, the current government is further to the left of Helen Clark's Labour -- after all in 2008 Key was elected as "Labour's policies with a prettier face" and he's pretty much continued in that vein.

So with National occupying the extreme left of the practical political spectrum, where can Labour go?

Perhaps, after another two terms of John Key, and then a Joyce / Crusher successor government, we'll get a 1984 Douglas style right-wing reforming Labour government again.

But my hope is for rather better than that - that Labour and the Greens continue their slide into irrelevance, and that a real right-wing (OK, in NZ terms, what anywhere else would be centre-left) party starts up with the aim of coalition with Key's Nats in 2017

Anonymous said...

I gather Clark is in town and if so can't see her not fiddling with this. It is, after all, a problem she created by selecting compliant nancy boys and soft cocks over ability. What's awful is that this shambles of wierdos has enough support from other weirdos to govern assuming that all the versions of the left could actually get along.

AngryTory said...

this shambles of wierdos has enough support from other weirdos to govern

Between now and the election, we must repeat over and over again the simple fact that there is no precedent in NZ for a government that is not lead by the largest single party.

A "coalition of the losers" will widely been seen as illegitimate. A second election - ideally under FPP, which National would win in a landslide - would be a far better option all around.

cheesefunnel said...

"So with National occupying the extreme left of the practical political spectrum, where can Labour go?"

This is not the case at all, benefit testing and/or asset sales are not 'extreme left' are they?, Labour's problem is National picks and chooses what it wants to do based on no seeming premise at all. All of the potential suitors seem like chumps...

Robertson : because he's gay.
Ardern : because she's pretty.
Little : angry throwback, pushed by the unions.
Cunliffe : arrogant twat, thinks he's the next Helen Clark.

I hope they just self destruct and go away.

Peter Cresswell said...

@Angry Tory, you said, "But really you're missing the structural forces underlying this: the reason Labour can't get any traction (even though under MMP they're within a couple o percent of a winning coalition) is that any Labour policy is immediately adopted and enacted by National."

And maybe you're missing that as long as any Labour policy is immediately adopted and enacted by National, then Labour--as far as its effect on New Zealand is concerned--is actually winning.