Flogging a dead horse
August 30th, 2011 at 2:00 pm by David Farrar3 News reports:
Labour leader Phil Goff says anyone who suggests he’s facing a leadership challenge is flogging a dead horse.
The party’s caucus is meeting for the first time since reports were leaked that Mr Goff offered to step down at a front bench meeting.
Duncan So if you win the seat you have said that you want to play a bigger role in the party?
Shane Sure.
It isn’t generally the done thing for MPs to declare in advance of an election they expect a bigger role if they win their seat.
Duncan So just back to my question. If you wanted to play a greater role, define that greater role for me.
Shane Oh no I certainly want to recover my position on to the front bench, but anything beyond that it’s with the caucus and it’s for the future mate.
Duncan And you’re suggesting someone in the caucus has leaked?
Shane No I have no evidence that a person in the caucus has leaked, I certainly know it wasn’t me cos I’m not on the front bench, but the fact to wake up when you’re trying to win votes and to read in the newspaper such a story about our leader, it causes my Slavic blood to boil
A very clear statement that he is not the leak as he was not on the front bench, and that he is peeved at who did it.
Duncan Now suggestions I’m getting out of Wellington being around the press gallery is that there are some camps now starting to set up in the Labour caucus camp. Cunliffe we’ll call one and Camp David Parker the other. What have you heard?
Shane No, no no I don’t think so. I think that both of them are very ambitious and they’ve got a lot to offer the Labour Party etc.
Duncan Does Cunliffe have leadership qualities?
Shane Well what he needs to do at the moment for all of us, and that’s what he’s promising he’s gonna do for us, is go and sell our economic policy. I understand David to have said on numerous occasions he’s a team player and he’s gonna tautoko or support Annette King and Phil Goff. Now what happens in the future we need to talk to him about that, but there’s really no – there’s no scope for this fratricide or there’s no scope for feeding the media’s appetite in wanting to turn this election into a Labour Party leadership fight, it’s a joke.
Now that looks to me like a bit of a slap towards Cunliffe – basically saying go concentrate on selling the economic policy.
Duncan Have you given up your leadership ambitions?
Shane Yeah no, I was – well I was flattered to be compared to JT and Winston etc. But those ambitions of mine have dimmed.
Duncan Dimmed or gone?
Shane Oh, no they’re at a very low ebb.
Duncan Have they gone?
Shane Oh that’ll depend on how well I do in Tamaki Makaurau.
Again as clear a statement as you can get that he will stand for the leadership after the election if he wins his seat.
Labour Leader Phil Goff is refusing to accept his party’s poor popularity saying its bad polling is because people aren’t focused on the issues.
Phil Goff’s excuse for his latest round of poor polling? “People aren’t focused on the issues”. But before Labour hacks engage in another round of “blame the voters”, I think we should ask: whose fault is that?
To point out the obvious, getting people to care about “the issues” so that they are energised and mobilised to vote is a core task of a political party. If people aren’t focused on Labour’s chosen issues, then that tells us that the Labour Party is doing a piss-poor job. Either they’ve chosen their issues badly, or they’re communicating them poorly (and in particular, worse than the government). But either way, it is not the voters who are at fault, but the party. And blaming the voters for the party’s failure just adds to the perception that Labour is arrogant.
Now just 89 days to go.
August 30th, 2011 at 2:06 pm
Hardcore Stalinist Bryan Gould was using this excuse in todays Herald, claiming that Key is bad for democracy because he is so popular and because the media are not giving Labour enough exposure.
Utter crap. The voters are focused on the issues, most of them just do not believe that Labour has the answers.
Vote:August 30th, 2011 at 2:12 pm
The Socialists remind of the car salesman who blamed the bastard customers for not purchasing his excellent wares.
Nothing wrong with my motors mate its the dumb punters who wont buy them.
Roll on 26th November, its going to be a Socialist blood bath
Vote:August 30th, 2011 at 2:23 pm
LOL fucking Labour. What a bunch of cunts. Goff is such a mouth-breathing loser.
[DPF: 20 demerits]
Vote:August 30th, 2011 at 2:30 pm
I do love this argument – its not our fault, were always right!! Geuss what you bunch of numbnuts – if we liked what we saw and heard, we would be fully engaged. We arent, and there is only one way the finger of blame is pointing, and its sure as hell not at Joe and Joanne Public.
You are a bunch of morally bankrupt careerist wankers who have been exposed as not giving a shit about your country and its people, despite what you say – you are in it for yourselves. Your support is collapsing becuase of it, not because we arent listening. We grew tired of listening and walked away, and you stood there blaming us. Sums it up really.
Vote:August 30th, 2011 at 2:33 pm
I had to laugh when Goff is complaining that voters are not focused on the issues.
Does he mean, the people of NZ don’t care about issues important to new labour?
Or, does he mean the people of NZ are stupid because they don’t think the same as new labour?
Labour are so arrogant, surely you’d think they’d learn some humility in opposition.
Vote:August 30th, 2011 at 2:36 pm
Maybe a CGT is not the vote winner ill informed commentariat think it is. Perhaps mixed ownership of SOEs for the 1.7 million kiwisavers appeals to them. Stopping school dropouts from ruining their lives is a good start. Who know perhaps parents want to know how their kids are performing and want to know how not only their schools rank but how their teachers rank nationally.
Vote:I think the voters are very much focused on the issues and Labour once again trying to tell us we arnt is just plain arrogant.
August 30th, 2011 at 2:45 pm
Camp Parker, Camp Cunliffe, Camp Goff, Camp Jones, starting to look like a real jamborree but Camp Mother is missing in New York. In which tent are the gaggle of gays. The self serving unionists could be expected to crowded into the tent of Camp Little.
Vote:August 30th, 2011 at 2:54 pm
A liar, hypocrite, untrustworthy, stupid, dead politically? Certainly.
But a horse? How does that work?
Lee01
“The voters are focused on the issues”
That’s good, because the media aren’t, and they certainly have short memories regarding the trail of slime that oozed out of the beehive during the Klerk tenure. They also have absolutely no interest in the blatant lying and sleazing that has characterised the reign of the idiot Goff. Just a headline will do them nicely thanks and if it requires a bit of imagination to substantiate it, then that’s all good too.
Vote:August 30th, 2011 at 2:55 pm
Perhaps the Gays are going to form their own camp and call it Camp Camp.
Vote:August 30th, 2011 at 2:55 pm
“In which tent are the gaggle of gays.”
Their not in a tent, their out back in the toilets.
Vote:August 30th, 2011 at 2:57 pm
Must be where Lee goes when he’s looking for a good time.
Vote:August 30th, 2011 at 3:16 pm
Not to mention not wanting to talk about the detail.
Can’t focus on the issue if you can’t examine the detail
Vote:August 30th, 2011 at 3:30 pm
At this rate the Socialists are going to provide more fun than a 3 ring circus from now til 26 November. The Socilaists remins of the Roman Circus providing entertainment for the citizens.
Yes Yes I know its expensive entertainment but by gosh it is hillarious to watch them eating each other. Like Christians and lions
Vote:August 30th, 2011 at 3:48 pm
Thieving bloody socialists, why would anyone steal a dead horse unless he had to feed the hounds. Oh yeah.
Vote:August 30th, 2011 at 4:37 pm
Come now, Liarbore only have two faults, everything they say and everything they do.
Vote:August 30th, 2011 at 4:44 pm
Classic missionary syndrome. “We know what is best for you and whether you like it or not we are going to beat it into you. There is much to be gained in your pain, trust us we know.”
trouble is that the stupid natives are much much more convinced that their own beliefs are worth sticking to. Perhaps it is a sign that the natives are maturing and becoming capable of thinking for themselves which just leaves the missionaries preaching to the converted. But the worst bit for Phil is that even some of the converted are abandoning the faith.
Vote:August 30th, 2011 at 5:03 pm
“Flogging a dead horse” could be Phil Goff’s “walking the plank” moment (recall the tragic image of Doddering Don).
But, fellow commenters, is there really a need to use homophobic and misogynist comments to undermine Labour? They are doing a good enough job of that themselves without you guys descending into the sewer of bigotry to help them out.
Vote:August 30th, 2011 at 5:19 pm
My God there is so much blood in the water, DPF don’t know what to blog about – on one hand we have the ineptitude of Goff actually using a phrase ‘flogging a dead horse’ without a scintillae of irony given his present continually declining poll ratings.
On the other, we have Shane ‘I’ve done one or two things I regret’ Jones tilting at leadership and again without a trace of irony visualising himself as the people’s hero who will rescue his party should the call come from an electorate desperate for his healing lotion.
Does Jones believe he is the one to pour oil on troubled waters?
Well, let’s face it – he’s poured oil on a few troubled things, but unfortunately, water wasn’t one of them.
Vote:August 30th, 2011 at 5:43 pm
I don’t understand how a guy who gets caught charging porn to the taxpayer is actually considering a return to front benches of the country’s government, much less a leadership move. Or how any voter might actually considering supporting him?
Can you imagine him as a PM? The Australian stand up comedy industry will boom. “Hey, did you who the Kiwis just elected…”
Then again, some people will still vote for Peters so there you go.
Vote:August 30th, 2011 at 8:48 pm
lastmanstanding says at 3:30 pm:
Labour doesn’t cost the country that much for our entertainment does it? Does salaries and Parliamentary funding of the party cost more that $20 million a year for their 43 Mp’s? Less that $500,000 an MP.
By comparison alone, National’s 58 Mp’s cost the country considerably more. $18 billion divided my 58 MP’s is over $310 million per MP just for one year. That’s a hell of alot of BMW limousines in anyones language.
Vote:August 31st, 2011 at 6:59 am
“Yes Yes I know its expensive entertainment but by gosh it is hillarious to watch them eating each other.”
Are we still quoting Shane?
Vote:August 31st, 2011 at 10:35 am
“is there really a need to use homophobic”
There is no such thing as “homophobia”.
Vote: