Colin Espiner has a piece in the Dom Post today attributing Labour’s four point rise in the polls to Goff’s ‘Nationhood’ speech.
He goes on, in what can’t help but be interpreted as a wee dig at The Standard:
after 30 years in politics, it’s also possible [Goff] knows the electorate a bit better than some of the 20-something handwringers who write for Labour’s websites.
Dear oh dear, Colin. Here’s what I actually wrote:
It’s possible that Goff might have won over some of the iwi/kiwi racists with the speech, he might even see a poll bounce (though nothing that would compare favourably with Brash’s 17%) but even if it works, is this any basis on which to build a sustainable progressive alternative?
Looks like we called it right again. Which is doubly ironic, considering that at the time Colin was pretty dismissive of the political impact of the speech, warning that Goff “risks smoke damage” because he “has neither Winston Peters’ snake-oil charm nor Dr Brash’s colonial tea-planter’s honesty” and white working class battlers won’t believe he’s being genuine.
Regardless, I still wonder whether it was worth burning progressive bridges for what is a pretty small poll gain with no clear trend yet evident. But hey, I’m no big city political correspondent, what would I know?
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