I’m pleased about the Roy Morgan result. The last RWC was worth 2-3% in the polls to National. This RWC … nothing. And in the days since that poll, John Key has overseen an astonishing attack on the women of Parliament. I think we’ve reached Peak Key.
Labour has positioned itself astutely in the run up to and early stages of its conference. Best news, there will be proper cooperation with The Greens next election.
The Auckland Energy Community Trust triennial election is currently under way and complaints have been made about C&R advertising of the payout to beneficiaries which they are entitled to as a matter of course. And some ill discipline amongst the right gives the City Vision candidates a real prospect of success.
How Corbyn gets taken out.
It appears that the Government has a radical proposal to undermine democratic participation in our Health Boards. Although the Minister claims not to know about it.
In a major shock, it appears veteren socialist Jeremy Corbyn is set to win the leadership of the UK Labour Party. Can his anti-austerity platform lift Labour up following their drubbing at the general Election? And can his ideas impact on our Labour Party here?
It was reported yesterday that “Labour would retain 90-day trial periods, but make them fairer”. Despite last minute claims to the contrary on Twitter, I think that this is probably correct.
A respectful open letter to Andrew Little with suggestions for how to win the next election!
There’s a lot of chatter about the Conservative Party at the moment, but the Nats are the only ones who have a reason to care.
Richard Harman concluded his presentation to the recent Fabian “Destination Next Progressive Majority” event by quoting the noted political scientist Bob Chapman’s remark that he had “reluctantly come to the conclusion that it was far more important for a political party to have a communication strategy than an economic policy.” I’m inclined to agree.
An argument in favour of New Zealand adopting Fixed Term Parliaments Act legislation.
Like a punch drunk boxer, the pollsters didn’t see it coming. Three leaders could be writing their resignation letters over night. David Cameron is pinching himself at how easy it all turned out. And Scotland had another referendum.
Some brief thoughts on the UK Election and what can be learned.
Update: Ed Miliband resigns. Nick Clegg and Nigel Farage have also quit.
One of the outstanding results in the UP election was the result in the seat of Paisley where a young 20 year old woman Mhairi Black defeated Labour heavyweight Douglas Alexander.
Ed Miliband is dominating social media in the UK on the eve of the election. #milifandom is the meme of the day!
UPDATE: Exit Poll suggests Tory win, Lib Dem’s smashed. SNP dominate in Scotland, Greens may win 2 seats. UKIP stuffed, Farage to lose in his seat. Labour still a possibility to govern.
UPDATE 2: Rumours that both Ed Miliband and Nick Clegg will resign in the morning. George Galloway loses his seat, UKIP have flopped and it appears Nigel Farage will not be an MP. However, Tory win not yet confirmed.
“The shrillness of the “hey look over there!” narrative coming from the right-hand-side shows just how deep the embarrassment within National is at the Northland campaign and result.”
Is Ed Miliband fighting democracy? Well…
The Greens have closed their nominations for male co-leader, and are running a number of provincial meetings. I went to the second one in Auckland. The biggest issue for the Greens now after cracking the 10% electoral support in 2011 is that they didn’t grow their vote in 2014, and remain well below polling. Part of that is getting their public face right.
With Crosby Textor by his side, John Key has since learned to employ all manner of specialist PR techniques including ad homs, blame-shifting, distraction, use of Dirty Politics proxies to defuse the situation, and false equivalence, all woven together in an intricately performed semantic shuffle designed to provide wiggle room for when he does get caught.
The electoral commission’s roll solution does two good things, and one regrettable thing. It would rule out misuse of the rolls for debt collection / product marketing purposes. Good – that isn’t what the electoral roll is for. It protects party/candidates access to electronic copies. But it continues to privilege them above other political advocates – bad!
As expected, Hillary Clinton has announced her candidacy in next year’s presidential election.
Congratulations to Labour for a very clever strategy in the Northland by-election – lulling and gulling John Key into thinking they were going to run a conventional proxy-partyvote campaign, where National would have the upper hand. Key, the rockstar politician, also thought Andrew Little would be on the training wheels. He got that badly wrong; Little’s handling was superb.
Make a submission about how our voting system should be improved.
There are many specific reasons why National lost Northland, but arrogance is the thread running through all of them.
Winston Peters’ win in Northland yesterday was based on turnout that was significantly higher than turnout for any other recent by election. And occurred in no small part because of some adept handling of messaging of support by Andrew Little.
Paddy Gower and Duncan Garner don’t understand our electoral system: “that’s MMP”. By-elections are pure First Past the Post – and that’s why Andrew Little didn’t need to do a deal, and Northland doesn’t stink like Epsom.
A selection of the wit and wisdom of Twitter tonight. Compare and contrast the Labour and National leaders.
Is anyone else experiencing a bit of political shellshock?
“John Key heckled in Northland” – ouch.
Stuff: “Peters says that over the next 48 hours the only thing National voters want from Key is an explanation for why they’re having a by-election in the first place.”
Well, it’s pretty much a done deal now. Winston’s going to win Northland. But who’s the biggest loser?
It looks to me like the early voting for Northland is likely to be close to or more than 50% of the total vote. Part of that is because it is a by-election. Part because of National’s hapless and tainted candidates (past and present) going against effective opponents. But also due to the strong trend to early voting. It will need to cause changes in electioneering.
Mark Osborne is the manager of a controversial ratepayer funded project that is the subject of a governance and funding review by the Far North District Council after major losses in its first two years. According to the NBR he is refusing to answer questions about it. Aren’t the voters of Northland entitled to some answers before they vote?
Is Northland getting sick of National’s panicked invasion? Will having Osborne fail to front Peters in the studio help? Could National actually lose Northland?
