Posts by giovanni tiso
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Hard News: Limping Onwards, in reply to Lew Stoddart,
Excuses. Sigh.
Great counterargument.
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Hard News: Limping Onwards, in reply to Lew Stoddart,
You might also read the comments to that post, in which I scotch the misunderstanding that I'm after a policy release.
I don't have all day, to be honest I'll stick with what you wrote in the post, which I didn't think was any more unimpeachable or any less selective than what Paul just pointed out and you dismissed out of hand. And I'm not saying because National sucked so Labour will have to suck, just pointing out that there are quite severe constraints on what the opposition can achieve with such a short election turnaround and with the backdrop of national disasters and a PM who has run a fairly tight ship. Have they fumbled? Yes. Did I hate the Axe the Tax campaign? You bet. But you accuse them of not having defined what they were about, which quite frankly they have - the two New Zealands speech is just about as clear a statement as you'll get.
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Hard News: Limping Onwards, in reply to Lew Stoddart,
Paul, John, and others, cherry-picking a couple of convenient examples to defend Labour's record isn't enough. Any fool can do that. If you want to argue that Labour isn't totally useless, I have a standing invitation for anyone who wants to do so, on Kiwipolitico.
It's not as if your own analysis is much more convincing, to be honest. You're seeing a replay of this stage of the electoral cycle in the first Clark term. Clark positioning herself strongly to govern alone. An ineffective opposition that hadn't released major policy. National lost badly on that occasion, but it's not as it if had to be blown apart - as you suggest it ought to happen to Labour - in order to get back into power. It bid its time, and now it's their turn. You also say yourself that it's difficult at this point of the cycle for the opposition to make headway, which is true (and made truer by two headline-grabbing earthquakes). You also seem to be expecting a policy release which is just unreasonable to ask for - they'll rightly wait until the campaign, but they've prepared the ground for it at the conference.
Which is not to say that Goff has done well, or that he gives me any confidence he would fight a strong campaign, or that the conventional wisdom of what is possible to achieve in the first term in opposition is correct. But Labour actually has a platform and has defined itself in contrast with National. On this Paul is right.
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Hard News: Limping Onwards, in reply to Sacha,
Please do provide examples, John. Really.
Actually, and my serious misgivings about it notwithstanding, the "two New Zealands" speech by Goff at the party conference created quite a bit of separation between the two parties on policy. More than we have seen for some time.
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Hard News: Limping Onwards, in reply to DexterX,
Six months is, after all, an eternity in politics.
I agree. The election campaign hasn't even remotely started - it's not as if the new guy (there would appear to be no viable gals) would be lacking time to make an impression.
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Hard News: Limping Onwards, in reply to James W,
Would a new leader losing the next election automatically mean they too had to step down afterwards? This seems to be a commonly held axiom but is there any basis to it? Why can't Cunliffe (or whomever) take over now, lead Labour to a slight but not catastrophic loss, and then continue building for the next election? Surely that's better than Goff's no hoper?
I'm genuinely asking.
If somebody took the reins now they'd be all but gauranteed to remain as leader after the election I would think.
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Yes, they are pretty conservative - enacted by Christian Democrats all over Europe.
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Hard News: Limping Onwards, in reply to Jimmy Southgate,
To me they seem not really committed to an identity or a vision that gives the party a strong reason to exist. Other than being not National.
Being not National is a great reason to exist.
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Hard News: Limping Onwards, in reply to Steve Withers,
Graeme: I tend to agree. Goff’s ‘gaff’ aside, anyone who wants public broadcasting; doesn’t want asset sales – overt or by stealth; does want public transport, *can’t* vote for the National Party. No matter what.
They can’t now. The only thing that endears me to Goff is that the party under his watch is fairly clearly against all of those things (and most especially further welfare reform). But that’s not to say that after a calamitous electoral defeat and under a new leader the party wouldn’t tack to its right and start selling us austerity with a human face. So on the one hand, yes, I think Goff needs to go for the reason that Graeme suggested – it may be more about staving disaster than winning at this point – but also because I’m afraid of where Labour might go if it was decimated. Whereas if it changed leadership now probably even under Power it would probably set a fairly decent agenda. (Relatively speaking: I’m not a huge Labour fan obviously.)
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OnPoint: Everything has changed until 2014, in reply to Matthew Poole,
So far they seem to be MIA.
Actually, MIA would be a considerable improvement on what they're doing.