This (above) was a cartoon in The Press the morning of the National Party's first ever election: the National Party of 1938 fighting proudly for freedom, individualism and sound finance against Labour's old shibboleths of socialism, state regulation, compulsory unionism and borrow-and-squander.
What a contrast to the lachrymose benighted bunch the Blue Team has become now!
What principles would National Labour-Lite ride into battle for today?
Does it have any beyond "power"?
Answers on a postcode, please.
4 comments:
I think it was a political scientist years ago who joked that the only principle the National Party has ever had was keeping the Labour Party out of power.
From 1949-1990 they did a very good job on the single-minded purpose. But since then it's more even-steven, and especially so since 2000, which makes their endless blather about "reaching the centre voter" seem like an ever greater losing proposition as time passes.
As just one example of this, I've asked numerous National Party types using this excuse for their bland uselessness, why Labour MP's and activists never refer to reaching for the centre vote, but being at least as successful as National at being in government - at least since 1990.
No answer to date.
It would be interesting to see a study done of the changing relationship of the "centre voter" within the Overton Window -- and how that Window has moved due to the supine selling out of conservative parties like this one, who almost always act to lock in the gains of their so-called opponents.
Yes, you've been hammering that point forever, and me since about 2007/2008 when I made this comment on Kiwiblog:
I don’t want to drag this thread too far off topic but what is National going to do should it win this November beyond babysitting the institutions of Labour and the Left. Nursing those things along, tiring all the time and steadily losing votes simply by being in Government and getting blamed for the insanities of those self-same institutions. Until the day comes, one or two election cycles down the road, when a revitalised Labour gets back into power and gets to push forward some more. Ratchet Socialism at its best.
The good news is that on the National Party Tub-Thumping organ, Kiwiblog, I now see this attitude being expressed a lot, versus the lone voices of a decade or more ago.
Whether that's going to translate into anything effective remains to be seen. I'd bet that even a 15% ACT vote would still see a sniffy National trying to push them into irrelevant portfolios. And of course I have to wonder if even they're up to it.
"The good news is that on the National Party Tub-Thumping organ, Kiwiblog, I now see this attitude being expressed a lot, versus the lone voices of a decade or more ago."
Hey, progress! Some progress at least.
Good on you for persisting with it there.
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