The simple reason ‘Trust’ was a monumentally-fucking-stupid platform was because the voting public don’t trust the word of ANY politician.

Building bridges is fine… but if the continent you’ve built the bridge to starts sinking in an ocean of corruption it’s time to pull back the bridge (if I may torture a metaphor to death in order to make a point).

The negatives outweighed the positives* almost from the outset and certainly by the time it was all sent to the Privileges Committee and Brian Henry started getting more “recovered memories” than a witness at the Peter Ellis trial.

Yes Labour outplayed the Nats in terms of using MMP to its advantage though to be fair it had a wider choice of stable coalition partners in that Anderton and the Greens were never going to cross the divide and the latter were always going to poll well unlike most of those who’ve supported National (the cravenly ambitious rump of ex NZF MPs like Deborah Morris who refused to walk when Winston did, Ross Meurant, Graeme Lee… I mean you try forming a stable government with that lot, let alone getting them re-elected for next time).

A Winston comeback? I’d suggest a laying a trail of whisky bottles to the edge of a cliff…

You were asking how to prevent one, right?

*and the only positive I could see was supposed “stability” – never a Winston strong point at the best of times.

In Farrar’s defence, well, he is a pollster by profession, so it’s kinda inevitable that he’ll see more issues in these terms than you or I would regard as perfectly healthy.

Oddly enough, I’m probably advocating for Labour to shift away from the direction where I personally would like to see them move to (somewhat of a cross between Labour and Greens). Then again, if they lose a few liberal votes to the Green Party it doesn’t really matter in the end, as they’re likely to need the Greens to help govern anyway.

I would agree that if National runs a Mt. Albert like campaign they’re in for trouble. I don’t think that will happen. I think John Key stood up well in the 2008 election and if anything its Goff performance that is going to be important (on that count Goff will be good in debates but I do wonder whether he can get the message out). I also wonder how important Mt. Albert is on the whole. We know that by-election saw an increase in activists for the party. But by all accounts Mt. Albert already had organisation there. Its questionable whether they have that organisation in other electorates and National’s organisation is far better elsewhere.

I agree that National have perhaps played it safe. But I think they had to and will keep doing so. National has to pander to its base but it also has to be moderate (though if you read this blog you’d think National was a fascist party). Though I don’t think Key was that far-right in the first place. Whilst Auckland Super-City will be an issue and you’ve pointed to others. There are also a number of areas where National can get gains. A new electoral finance act will be one. The Foreshore and Seabed could potentially be a winner for National. We’re still to see a proper infrastructure plan and its likely National will be moving with its broadband plan. So whereas there are some areas that could be problematic for National, there are also areas where National can make gains.

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I do wish I could write much tighter. I tend to say too much whereas any other person would be able to say the same thing in just one paragraph.

L

I’m intrigued by Key’s strategy, really. It is against the grain to think that deferring decisions actually increases political capital (as opposed to taking the hit early). Perhaps there is a public need not to have to think about anything difficult, and Key has tapped into it.

But it’s not “leadership”, and that may be his undoing. The “have a look at, yeah, I’m relaxed, we’ll see” style of non-decisions has a limited shelf life, not least with his own base, who will want him to be “tough”, sooner or later.