According to this article that appeared in the Herald this week Labour may as well give up now and not even bother contesting the 2017 election. National has won and John Key will be Prime Minister again so we have to suck it up and bear it.
The timing is interesting. On a day when the richest Western Democracy’s pollsters were shown to have no idea of what was happening this academic not only thinks that the next election is a foregone conclusion and it is too late for Labour to do anything. And her understanding of the MMP environment is poor in that she uses only the difference between National and Labour in the polls as the determining factor. The Green Party may as well not exist.
Interestingly the writer relies on historical polling data. This worked really well in the US of A where all of the pollsters got the result wrong. Nate Silver’s 538 was one of the best. But even it thought that the chances of a Clinton win were pretty likely. It stands out because it did not think that a Clinton win was almost inevitable.
Here is 538’s graph from June 8 to two days ago. This is the most pessimistic estimate of Clinton’s chances I can find.
You have to question the quality of the analysis. It is not as if Spin Professor has no form. She has been anti Labour for as long as I can recall. It is worrying that a public servant such as a media personality like Mike Hosking is at least superficially biased. But an academic who is meant to weigh up the evidence dispassionately?
Some twitter traffic adds context …
Her tweet invited inevitable responses.
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