Monday, July 31, 2017



What reason is there to vote for Labour?

Seven weeks to the election, and Labour's vote has once again collapsed to historic lows. Andrew "I might quit" Little is blaming the Greens, and he's right - because the Greens have actually been campaigning, trying to win people's votes. Meanwhile, Labour has been patiently waiting for "their turn", expecting that after nine years people will just be bored of a National government and switch to something else.

And that just isn't good enough. Parties need to give us a reason to vote for them. What reason has Labour given? They're not National? Pretty obviously, that's not going to convince anyone who currently supports the government to change their mind. Neither is their "fresh approach" of the status quo with different managers. If you want that, why vote for the imitator rather than the real thing? And if you're pitching on being better managers, you actually need to be better. Labour's pervasive incompetence and consistent fuck ups isn't going to win over even the tiny fraction of voters for whom "better management" is a primary consideration.

Fundamentally, Labour are trying to convince people to vote for change. So they need to actually offer some. And not the pallid, triangulated, tinkering around the edges they've offered so far, but something real. The Greens do. Winston does too, in a different way (change back to the way things were in the 1950's). And people who want change are voting for them. The only change Labour offers is who gets the jobs and who gets the perks, which cronies feed at the trough. And that doesn't inspire anyone. Its no wonder that they're losing.