A long and interesting read:
Audrey Young: Labour has the edge if the Left’s seat count rises
Politics, like life, would be a lot simpler without choices. Ask Winston Peters.
This week he seemed burdened by having to make coalition choices when he pointed out that no matter what he did, someone would find fault, the public, the media, or commentators.
“You can’t win,” he told reporters in a moment of unprovoked self-pity.
Poor Winston.
So assuming the specials confirm him as kingmaker, with a reasonable cushion of votes in either option, has he made up his mind?
No, but Labour would probably have an advantage because of the greater policy overlap, a more equal partnership with both being new parties of government, inherently less cause for conflict and inherently less cause for the public to tire of you.
It’s good to see that media commentary has moved on from “largest party rulez” to something a bit more nuanced.
But there are also signs that National may do what it did in 1996 and offer more than Labour.
Keeping deputy leader Paula Bennett out of the first pro-forma courtesy meeting was an appalling decision by English that simply says he was desperate to please Peters at any cost. If a party is willing to ditch its deputy before they have even got to first base then what else is it capable of?
Anything. National are capable of saying or doing anything to cling to power.
The election may have given New Zealand First choices, but there will be pitfalls for Peters’ party in whatever option it chooses.
The biggest pitfalls for the country lie in rewarding the kind of politics that National has engaged in for the last nine years.
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