A conservative coup

The New Conservatives announced:

After a thorough and robust review of the party leadership by the New Conservative Board, we have come to the difficult decision to look for a fresh approach to the leadership of New Conservative and have relieved Leighton Baker of the leadership of the party at this time. 

Elliot Ikilei will step into the position of Leader and Victoria O’Brien into Deputy Leader effective immediately. We welcome them to their new roles and know that they both have strong support within the party and huge respect outside the party. They both have what it takes to lead us through the next phase of our journey.

I’m not surprised by this. In fact I’ve done a number of presentations in the last year on the prognosis for various political parties and have often said I thought the New Conservatives would do better with Elliot. Leighton Baker has been a very diligent servant of the party, but is not good at getting cut through. Ikilei does get cut through.

So it will be interesting to see how they do with new leadership. However their chances are still not great as lifting their vote to 5% would be a huge task.