Thursday 19 June 2014

Knives out for Cunliffe? Nah mate more like Nukes at Dawn.

There is nothing more sweet than a political party turning on itself. It's a rare chance to get a ringside view of the best live action political thriller of the decade.
Thankfully for us in our stable political democracy the chance of a major party erupting into all out internal guerrilla warfare of the most dirty kind is low. But every now and then us mere mortals get the chance to peak behind the iron curtain and see the machinations of politicians fighting for their personal survival, over the interests of the party.
This is exactly what is happening with the NZ Labour Party right now. Their poll numbers are in free fall, the leaders poll ratings are even worse at 11%, the majority of the Labour caucus either hate or are indifferent to their leader David Cunliffe, for his superiority complex. And now via a well timed leak, someone within Labour has sought to kill his leadership once and for all. Damming him to going down in history as Labour's worst leader of all time. Which incidentally is exactly what the Labour caucus want. They don't want to roll him before the election, no one wants that poisoned chalice. I don't even think the ever stupid Trevor Mallard would want to risk it for his 5 second claim to fame. Certainly none of the serious contenders for future leadership will want it before the election. They want it to be such a serious disaster for the Labour Party, that they can legitimately remove David Cunliffe once and for all from the Labour Party, never to be seen again. And to be able to amend the Labour constitution to remove or at least severely curtail the ability of the party members and union affiliates to choose the Labour leader.
They want to show the party grassroots members that their idea of a hard left direction for the Labour Party is not electable in this day and age. That the voters no longer want hard left class politics, the voters demand centrist policies and crave stability.
The Labour caucus wants to banish those that think like this, and who supported David Cunliffes leadership bid to the very fringe of the party, probably in the hope that they will become disenfranchised and leave the party altogether.

There is no other narrative that makes sense.
It's not in Nationals interest to roll a weak and ineffective Labour leader like David Cunliffe. To them he's the gift that keeps on giving. Almost every time he opens his mouth National see their poll ratings go higher as people realise that he's not PM material.
National know that the next in line for Labour leader is Grant Robertson, someone who presents a much greater threat to National, given his great oratory skills. Even his supposed downside of his being gay doesn't really seem to have much affect on his genuine like ability.
So for anyone to argue a National hatched plan, or scheme makes little sense.

What do National have to gain from it? Surely the answer is nothing.

Someone within the parliamentary Labour Party stands to gain far more than anyone within National, or any of their supporters. Even the idea of being able to show a shambles of a Labour Party with a change of leadership so close to the election doesn't fly, as as I've pointed out above Grant Robertson is a far greater threat to National, especially once you take into account the inevitable poll bounce he and Labour will get once he becomes leader.  National under MMP don't have the luxury of risking permanently damaging 2 Labour leaders for some potential long term gain. They can't afford the risk of Labour and it's left allies gaining the percentage points that having Grant Robertson as Labour leader could bring, being the reason for National loosing this election.
The risk/reward equation just doesn't work for it.

The only reasonable reason for this well timed leak from within the parliamentary Labour Party, or at least it's offices, is that someone has decided to use the nuclear option to permanently destroy any chance of David Cunliffe becoming PM, or retaining the Labour leadership post election. By doing it so close to an election and the opening to remove the leader they've also given themselves a great cover and room for the all important plausible deniability. Of course whoever has done it is safe in the knowledge that they have a safe electorate seat and will survive their self created nuclear winter to rise like a cock roach out the other side to flourish another day.
It's just a pity for David Cunliffe he's at ground zero and he hasn't even realised it's a nuke from his own side.

Brings new meaning to the phrase all is fair in love and war.

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