It was pretty obvious that Labour was going to lose, and I had adjusted for that reality. I never listen when people say "oh but don't believe those polls, they're biased because [insert pet theory]". The polls predicted a Labour vote in the mid-late 20s, and that's what we got.
So no great shocks really. I am delighted that my local candidate, Phil Twyford, smashed Tau Henare convincingly to take Te Atatu, and I'm proud to have been part of his campaign.
I'm also sad at the loss of so many good Labour MPs, like Stuart Nash and Carmel Sepuloni (although Sepuloni may still scrape in on special votes). Many other good candidates missed out, because they were given list places too low, and because the party decided that a bunch of people whose time has passed should be protected.
This was the biggest mistake Labour made. Its election campaign was a good one, but the damage had been done months before.
The fact that National ran an awful and clumsy campaign and that it didn't make a bit of difference to the party's vote, indicates that most people made their minds up long ago.
And now we have potentially weeks of intrigue over Labour's leadership. I hope they don't rush the decision about who the leader should be, because there needs to be debate about the direction the party is to take.
The good news is that National has now had three years to fix things. In 2014 Key's efforts to blame Helen Clark's government are going to sound piss-weak.
Sunday, November 27, 2011
6 comments:
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Labour's has the 124th quotient, that is a long way from the cut-off, you'd be incredibly lucky to get that on specials.
ReplyDeleteI don't really see Labour getting hammered as the worst of outcomes, since a goodly proportion of them went to the Greens. Some probably also went to Winston, but I'm not so sure, it will be interesting over the next few weeks to see where his votes really came from. Either way, what I saw was a broad shift to the left.
ReplyDeleteYour hard work paid off. You should be happy with Te Atatu. I was surprised about Nash. I think thats a mistake.
ReplyDeleteAnita - I think it was being suggested that Carmel might win the electorate on special votes, not that Labour might gain an extra list MP.
ReplyDeleteActually I rather think of this result as a win for the left long term. I voted for Winston and that tactically has worked out well, he will now become an irrelevant side show. ACT are screwed although I am pissed off with Epsome( I am sure we could put down the Labour vote to National voters voting strategically )
ReplyDeleteWhen Phil steps down a maybe a couple of Labour list MP's might want consider doing so as well.
Labour need to take to their party list with a pruning saw - too much dead wood dragging the thing down. They should have realised before finalising the list that this year's election was likely to be brutal and putting old MPs ahead of promising talent would leave several of their potential future leaders out of parliament for the next 3 years. The challenge now is to create a Labour party that people want to vote for in 2014...
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