Criticising your own party

Jordan Carter defends himself against claims of being merely a Labour mouthpiece. His arguments generally are;

(a) There are some things he can’t comment on in public, due to roles he holds
(b) He has other avenues in which he can raise concerns
(c) He is broadly happy with what the Government does

Now these are all valid to varying degrees, and I’ll return to them shortly to discuss my perspective on them. But for now I want to take people to another post Jordan made the very same day:

The National party under Brash/Key is a party that exists to serve the interests of the very rich and powerful.

The Labour Party under Helen Clark exists to serve the interests of every single New Zealander.

Now with respect to Jordan, it is statements like this which lead people to sometimes criticise his blogging style. Those lines may get a round of cheers at a meeting of Labour Party financial members, but they hardly lend themselves to good debate and go down like cement with the 80% of NZers who are not true believers for a party. It’s so partisan it lacks credibility. It almost paints the contest as one of good and evil. I’d respectfully suggest less slogans like the above would improve things.

Turning back now to the main issue, which is how do you criticise your own party. Now like Jordan I have held senior office within my party (not currently though) and have very strong personal, political and/or professional relationships with most MPs and senior organisational figures. And I value those relationships greatly. So my first rule tends to be that any criticism should be expressed in such a way as to not endanger those relationships. That doesn’t mean I’ll praise things I disagree with, or pretend something has been handled well when it hasn’t. But it does mean I will be temperate with my criticisms, and try not to personalise them.

If I disagree on a policy (and there were several last election I recall criticising) I will usually state my understanding as to why they have adopted such a policy, but still state my disappointment it wasn’t (for example) bolder. That gets my point of view across, but takes the sting out of the criticism.

When National is not performing as well as it could politically, I weigh up my approach carefully. Sometimes, like Jordan, I will just pass on my views directly to MPs and advisors. Sometimes (such as with the Exclusive Brethren issue) I will voice concern on the blog as a way to help pressure for the right decision to be made. Sometimes I will just say nothing as it is obvious that National has stuffed up, and doesn’t need the obvious re-stated.

The other thing I try to do is praise other parties when praise is due. I will in fact go out of my way sometimes to make sure I do this, as I believe it does help the credibility. I said this week that the PM did very well (maybe even better than very well) at her party conference. A couple of weeks ago I praised a NZ First policy. I’ve said nice things about the Greens quite often etc. Sure I disagree with many of their policies but no one party has a monopoly on good ideas and good intentions.

In summary it is somewhat of a tightrope to blog critically about your own party. But I’ve found that so long as one does it in a temperate and restrained way, you can do it without damaging your relationships with key players.