How many bad polls and errors of judgement is the electorate willing to give to a political leader?
That the polls between Luxon and “Chippy” remain so close (albeit predictably low) speaks for itself but, as has been suggested many times on this blog, Chippy’s (and Labour’s) numbers are more a reflection of just how badly the prime minister, and indeed National in general, are viewed by the electorate than of how wonderful Labour are. It’s a win by default.
But why is it that National and its leader are polling so badly?
Numerous reasons really but, in simple terms, they haven’t come close to fulfilling the expectations they promised or implied in the campaign. We wanted the racist BS to end. We wanted the climate change BS to end. We wanted health and education to be sorted. We wanted to see improvements in government spending and the economy overall. We wanted a strong, sensible and dynamic leadership based on the free market principles of the centre right.
Without the strong position taken by the minor coalition partners, National would appear to have sat on its hands about everything and, I’m sorry, but their leader is at the forefront of woke response on everything and consistently shows pretty high levels of inadequacy as a leader. The most recent example hit us last week as reflected in Cam’s post “Bayly Bites Back: Misled, Mugged and Now Gunning for Luxon”.
Eight months or so after it happened the Andrew Bayly resignation is back to haunt him. Like so many things about Luxon’s utterances, it never did quite seem to be real at the time and only now we’ve found out why.
Think back to Luxon on Mike Hosking’s breakfast show. In one of the most embarrassing radio moments I’ve ever heard from a politician, Luxon wouldn’t answer if he would have sacked Bayly had he not resigned.
It went like this:
Hosking: “Would you have sacked him if he hadn’t offered to resign?”
Luxon: “Well hypothetical, he did resign…”
Hosking: “No I know that, but just answer the question – would you have sacked him?”
Luxon: “Well he didn’t meet the expectations of a minister…”
Hosking: “Was it a sackable offence?”
Luxon: “Well ahh I think given how clear we’d been on the first instance about what…”
Hosking interrupts: “Why can’t you just answer the question; you see this is why you get yourself reputationally in so much trouble…Would you have sacked him yes or no?”
I won’t quote the entire interview but you can watch it here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TGzacuMwgj0
Go to 3.59 for a skilfully embarrassing masterclass in duck shoving.
I remember asking myself “What’s the up side for Luxon to not answer this simple question?” I couldn’t for the life of me understand why he just kept playing with words and was clearly avoiding stating the obvious.
Now we know why. In a typical political play, Luxon was using a lame excuse to get rid of a member of his cabinet and he must have known he was on extremely thin ice. Luxon fumbled around with platitudinous, evasive answers because he must have known how lightweight the charges were. Otherwise, he would have simply answered yes.
Bayly resigned on the basis of the information provided to him and that information was dishonest and misleading. That’s the obvious answer and it’s an horrific example of appalling leadership.
Another black mark on the Luxon Prime Ministerial CV that might well be the last straw.
If Luxon knew what it appears he knew, it is he who should resign the leadership.
