http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=19786816&postID=2967476490706329474

“Suppose you were an idiot and suppose you were a member of Congress (House of Repesentatives). But I repeat myself.”

And then the internal blood letting follows much bleating and wailing. And for me its this perceived divine right they believe they have to rule thats at the heart of it. They cannot understand WHY people arent interested, and honestly believe that we are stupid and that one day we will realise that we are and come flocking back.

Delusional to say the least. They hate JK with a passion, and expect us to as well. They cant say why they do, and thats the thing – they do because they do.

So, who is stupid – you be the judge

The overcredentialed Beltway paper shuffling class, who are entirely out of touch with working class kiwis and their issues, will simply go along with it – mocking the purpose of democracy yet again !

Crap !

“The leader is good, the leader is great, I surrender my will as of this date” – Homer Simpson

Either way, conflict is what you get in parties when you don’t base policy on underlying princples. If Labour believe in nothing, then the public can only ever fall for everything – just look at the policy history of the current ALP…. and also now their polling.

Motherhood statements like ‘fairness & equality’ don’t cut it, as they are not policies or principles but just hope – just look at O’bama, Rudd and Gillard – all doorstop and no delivery !

Principle leads to consensus – the liberals in OZ have it, and they ALP don’t.

Labour at least have the time to get some ‘solid as rock’ underlying priniples – and THAT, is really what leadership is all about.

Of course Bill’s 1990′s mate, Tony Blair, is an even deeper hole of hatred for pulling a similar stunt in the UK. But if you want to see the problems Shearer faces you could do worse than to read The Dim Post’s piece on Cunliffe’s speech, where Dim is so enthused that he lists the entire thing. The comments are even more revealing. I especially appreciated ye old Stalinist worshiper, “Sanctuary”, describing university economics lecturer, Eric Crampton as a “crackpot”.

It’s an incredible sight to behold: the left-wing just absolutely refuse to understand how their ideas increasingly fail to fit a modern world. Instead we get fantasies that the “neo-liberal” economic ideas have had a stranglehold on the world, especially the Western World, since the days of Reagan and Thatcher. There seems no limit to what I can only describe as an utterly bizarre inversion of reality. Apparently this neo-liberal universe includes France, Greece, Italy, Spain and the rest of the Euro Social-Democracy disaster zone: even Sweden is getting brickbats from the “true” left for dipping its toes into things like charter schools and selling off public hospitals.

For the all now-standard venom dripped on Blair for his dealings with Murdock there seems to be no acknowledgement of the incredible increase in government spending (much of it on traditional left-wing institutions such as the NHS) under Blair, and even more so under his successor Gordon Brown. Some neo-liberal economic approach that was. For all the embarrassed laughter about Brown nowadays, I well remember the various promotions of him from left-wingers as Blair was pushed to stand-down. My favourite in this was Anita McNaught as the “UK Correspondent” for Nine to Noon several years ago, breathlessly describing how everybody was just so impressed by Gordon’s huge increases in government spending on healthcare and everything else. No neo-liberal he; this was real, traditional Labour party stuff, the reason they were there, and people could not wait for Blair to finally go so that there could be more of it.

And now Cunliffe is appealing to the same types of voters along the same lines of appeal. And in getting Shearer dumped and then getting Labour back into power in 2014, it could well work – until the money runs out, even with all the tax increases.

But it will still be the fault of the neo-liberal “stranglehold”.

What Cunliffe has done here is define a position. This places pressure on others in Labour to consider where they stand in relation to it. At the same time, it undermines attempts to sidestep revealing a position by making non-committal sympathetic noises.

All good stuff, but part of me can’t help but wonder why I find it so hard to feel anything about Shearer. He just comes across as … meh. And “meh” doesn’t get you elected.

that’s key..

and his inaction on/over banks defines that..

phillip ure@whoar.co.nz

“I understand there’s another speech coming up from David on the economy and the environment.”

“Anyway, it doesn’t matter in this context because Cunliffe just crossed the line. He is either now officially challenging Shearer or he has just betrayed the activists that have so much faith in him.”

“Cunliffe is miles away from the path being set by the current leadership. This is Cunliffe challenging the status quo.”

http://thestandard.org.nz/some-good-vision/

The Standard seems to be very split on Labour leadership, with a definite Cunliffe faction and lukewarm support for Shearer.

But for Cunliffe to start promoting his own “vision” it suggests that neither him or Shearer are pulling the strings within Labour.

David Cunliffe will turn voters off even faster than you upset commenters here at DPF’s blog. He comes across as smarmy, aloof, arrogant and patronising. He has the “born to rule” persona that so many of the Left accuse National Party MP’s of having. People will not easily warm to him.

Perhaps that’s why David Cunliffe was so resoundingly beaten in December when he stood for the leadership.

JK Joyce and BE must be both pissing themselved silly and also thinking there by the Grace of God go we watching the Socialist Party at work kniving themselves to death.

Betcha Shearer will be gone by Christmas. Silent T will be installed and the fighting will continue anew.

Lubbly Jubbly

Sky ? Crap.
Banks?
Labour’s leadership follies?
Labour’s special interest groups?

Who cares apart from the likes of that resident idiot philU? .

phillip ure@whoar.co.nz

@ Deborah,

People get political lessons from fiction all the time, “Atlas Shrugged”, “Animal Farm”, Nineteen Eighty-Four” “Catch-22″ etc.

..but i also have concerns that the right is supporting shearer ‘cos they see him as less likely to make the bold changes required…

..(this is also why they are so anti-cunnliffe..’cos he is articulating that required anti-neo-lib vision..

..i think the right feel they will also be able to manipulate shearer to keep labour as just a national-lite..

..(which will mean s.f.a. change for the elites/1/%…just tweedle-dum and tweedle-dee..)

..whereas again cunnliffe certainly has a plan for real change…

..i am just hoping shearer will cleave more to that anti-neo-lib vision…

..and not just try to be key-lite..

..that cd make for the best of both worlds..

.. a new leader..untainted by labours’ past/history..

..and a strong plan to end this dead-end-plan of austerity-madness..

phillip ure@whoar.co.nz