Here's to rooting for a solid opposition.

Oh, wait.

Grant Robertson being shut out AGAIN by the old cloth-cap dinosaurs of the union movement will have cost Labour a lot of GenX/Y supporters and activists already. I'm betting that a whole bunch of Wellington Young Labour types put on Green undies overnight.

Labour remind me of that popular line from Spartacus..

"With voters' cock in arse.."

"solid" "strong" "straight-shooter" "a move away from identity politics" "dropping controversial policies" . . . . so far so good. Remembering Labour are trying to win back soft National voters that got sick of Auntie Helen.

A move away from identity politics?

No. They're not. Or rather, if they are, they're retards.

The biggest message I got from the election result was that NZ middle voters vote for COMPETENCE (or the appearance of competence, etc etc). They might not like all of National's policies, and they might be traditional lefties, but they look at National and they look at the incompetent clusterfuck and it's no contest.

Labour's top priority now is not winning back voters or whatever the fuck. It's not getting more centrist policies, it's not appealing to Waitakere Man or whatever. It's STOPPING BEING AN INCOMPETENT CLUSTERFUCK.

That's an organisational challenge. It's got nothing to do with politics. Little's most important job is turning Labour from a bunch of muppets into a modern political party. He needs to get the right talent, the right structure, and money. And after that he needs to get even more money. (Donors don't donate to incompetent clusterfucks.)

so tears!
 

They're not going to be able to govern without those voters but yeah, obviously this will involve making changes to get there.

Something like this.

You might need to google 'identity politics' or something.

Little chooses Annette King as deputy leader.

Going for that key old Wellington deadwood demographic I guess.

Oh FFS.

I see Labour is conceding the next election already. Then again, Annette King is popular in her electorate - has kept her seat for the last 3 elections (at least) by a healthy margin.

At least someone near the top of the party can win an electorate, eh?

King looks to be a temporary measure. Good to see Davis at 8. Armstrong calling the reshuffle "radical and ruthless" - which is how Labour will want the media portraying things.

I agree with the National Party blogger!

I've never been a Labour supporter, but if there's anyone who can lead them out of the wilderness, Little is the one. Interesting times ahead.

Woo, Labour at the top of my news feed for once, and not for anything embarrassing to Labour to boot:
Andrew Little: Cameron Slater's a sociopath who knows John Key's secrets

Littles just pissed that someone has given his cell number to Martin Bradbury.

3480 word State of the Nation speech from Andrew Little this morning.

I'll save you the time and quote the most important part:
"So today I’m not going to focus on policy detail."

If you really want to read it though:
http://thestandard.org.nz/andrew-lit...ation-in-2015/

Anything that involves the phrase "Dirty Politics" is, by definition, embarrassing to Labour.

Fuck off.

Anything that involves the phrase "Dirty Politics" is, by definition, embarrassing to New Zealand. NZ draws itself closer and closer to US style politics. If you can vote in NZ, then dirty politics is on you.

The NZ public don't care. The only people that care about the "Dirty Politics" affair are Green and Labour activists. The blog-on-paper "Dirty Politics" and the left's outragegasm about it are what won the election for National. Any time "Dirty Politics" is mentioned in conjunction with the Greens or Labour, it reminds voters why they didn't vote for them.

Are you agreeing with or refuting me? Yeah, it's the NZ public buying into attack and smear politics or being indifferent to it, the NZ media going along with it, the right producing it, the left being unable to denounce it.

Yay fucking New Zealand. ::facepalm::

Oh, wait. My mistake. You're saying everything is A-OK.

We're kind of in agreement. The right think things are grand, cause they give no fuck about anyone but them and theirs, and typically are in a position to use their power over the vulnerable. The left think things are fucked because they actually take the time to listen to those other than the intimate or powerful, the unknown vulnerable being considered of value as well.

This in gross terms is my understanding of the right and left, yes. Then there are those who don't have the time or energy to really place themselves on either side, they're just trying to get through the day with a minimum of screaming.

Sorry, enough mewling, gotta keep this party going, keep this party going, keep this party going. AMIRITE?!

"Dirty Politics" was a disaster for the Left and it handed the election to National on a plate. Which, I'm guessing, was not what the broader Left wanted or expected to happen.

If I were advising the Labour party on communications strategy, which I'm not, I would be telling them to avoid saying or doing anything that could be construed as a continuation of the "Dirty Politics" fiasco for a long long time.

Wait, so National acting like a pack of cunts == Labour/Green handing National the election?

Come again?

Lemme spell it out for ya LS.

Left attempted to smear National with Dirty Politics
NZ Public said "uh, politics is dirty, we dont care, give us good policies"
Left tried to release policy, but also tried to keep smearing.
NZ Media was complicit in this smearing.
Public ignored the media, rejected the lefts pathetic policy writing attempts
National wins Election ezymode.

Also: Kim Dotcom

Ah, so Labour not being effective at responding to National exploiting their position of power to maintain their position of power equates to handing National the election.

Uh-huh, compelling.

My theory is that most voters are either Muppets that don't give a shit about these sorts of things or one-eyed National supporters.

Muppets gonna mupp.

QED.

Don't stop believin' LS

Basicly we are fucked, until the day kiwis cant wander off to the uk, or flee to Australia, then no ones going to seriously give a shit.
When middle nz realise they cant flee any more, maybe they will start taking this policy stuff seriously, and then some screaming will start. and its not likely to be pretty.

What I want is peeps like this

http://www.pcgamesn.com/valve-s-econ...-event-horizon

Intelligent pragmatic, HAS REAL WORLD EXPERIENCE.

I could say the same to you. Got any more of that actual perspective? It's appreciated.

It's not that. It's people trying to pay the rent, raise their kids, get a warrant for the car, put together some kind of meaningful life, while also trying to respond to all the social and economic pressures they find themselves under. National and the right of the world in general are pushing more and more pressure onto those least able to resist it. And wearing down the resistance of those who still can.

So that those whose parents' parents invested in the right thing can have fun and play.

The "Dirty Politics" debacle happened because the Left wanted two things really really bad:

1. For the things described in the book to all be true, and
2. For the NZ public to care.

As it turns out neither was the case.

Well, I don't know anything about that. What I know is we're getting screwed by National and National voters are saying we should love it up the arse. Some tearing and bruising is just to be expected. And we were asking for it any way, what with that pretty dress we're wearing.

::facepalm::

Well I'm kinda out of touch with what's going on in NZ at the moment, is the Govt fucking people in the arse in a new way?

It'll be DP action if they sign the TPP in its current state, that's for sure.

Lolspeed got the inside word on the TPP?

Hard to say - as soon as he starts to looks stupid he responds with something like this:Then throws out some sort of cleverly worded line that really means nothing.

Uh, we all did you dumb shit. But let's hear your dance about how we didn't.

Here's a small tear, just a little one:
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/educ...t-schools-hard

Yeah, but I can just spin something about epistemology. Come on, fiddling with language is good enough for the man in charge, it's good enough for you and I.

A lot of people in the middle probably genuinely didn't see themselves better off with National, but a left coalition never looked functional, so it seemed like you'd be gunning for the same or worse.

Dirty Politics just made it seem like the left cared more about scoring points than offering something positive. Oh yeah, Vote Positive. Yeah Right.