Labour supporter Phil Quinn writes:
Labour’s electoral problems are not especially complex or mysterious: the party’s appeal has shrunk to a handful of urban and suburban pockets; it has failed to rejuvenate in policy, personnel or organisational terms since its repeated drubbings; and it operates under a set of self-serving delusions, foremost among them the unshakeable belief that the tide will go out on National eventually so shut up and wait our turn.Maybe I'm wrong. Perhaps it is disloyal to point any of this out. Maybe the key to electoral success lies in never questioning; in mindless devotion to whoever happens to be in charge. There is certainly a plausible case that Labour will win the next election due to the unwritten rule that Kiwis like their governments on a nine-year rotation. The next election will certainly remove any doubt on that point: if this Labour Party, broke, moribund and bereft of ideas, can win the 2017 election then the three term rule will rise to immutability.
The three term rule assumes predictable behaviour based on constant ethnic and age demographics, a condition currently lacking. Labour waiting for 'their turn' is then a highly dubious strategy.
By moving so readily and cheerfully to the centre-left ground, National has starved Labour of its traditional vote.
The debates move further out to the fringes between the small versus big govt advocates. The masses in the middle, who take little day-to-day interest in politics, will stay with a government that doesn't shake their world.
Perhaps that is what Little is thinking as he systematically dumps any significant policy differences.
Trouble is, not rattling cages only works for the incumbent party.
When straight white guy Damian O’Conner became an ‘outliner’ in caucus the party was doomed.
ReplyDeleteThe kind of ‘diversity’ represented by Labour is a place where political parties go to die.
By moving so readily and cheerfully to the centre-left ground, National has starved Labour of its traditional vote.
ReplyDeleteNational hasn't moved to the "centre-left" - but to the extreme left. You do know that Syriza's policies in Greece are to the right of Key's policies here - and Syriza is a "radical left" party?
At the 2011 election under Goff, Labour was to the Right of National on all significant policy areas.
Trouble is, not rattling cages only works for the incumbent party.
the real question is whether the pendulum theory holds good or not - that people will get sick of National & Key and vote for Labour & whoever just for a change.
There is an alternative theory, based on economics: that socialism is bankrupt, that even Europe is following Russia and China and the rest of Asia in eliminating the welfare state, public health & education and embracing competition and personal responsibility. It seems that will leave NZ as the last remaining socialist country - under National!