Over the last few weeks there have been numerous media articles and commentaries about how Luxon has to go. What has been really noticeable is how few people have come to his defence. In fact, the few might be no one outside of caucus, and caucus are only defending him with the kind of tepid enthusiasm Helen Clark has for her retirement.
Usually if a leader is in trouble there will be proxies out arguing that things aren’t that bad and he will turn them around. Instead there is a deathly silence. Fortunately for Luxon the media haven’t yet worked this out, because they could have a huge amount of pleasure in door stepping all the ministers going into parliament for cabinet on Monday and caucus on Tuesday.
“Are you worried about Chris Luxon’s numbers?”
“Are you worried you will lose your seat if Luxon stays as leader?”
“Do you know what Luxon stands for?”
“What does Luxon have to do to turn around the poll numbers?”
Obviously the National MPs will not have seen any bad polls, so the smarter members of the media will have the TPU poll printed out to hand to them so they do see it. And they will back up any questions with ‘Is that the talking point from Luxon’s office?’
They could also have fun asking ACT and NZ First about Luxon. There isn’t much point in asking NZ First, because Winston will simply say, ‘It is a matter for the National Party.’ Shane might say a bit more but it will be the same message.
ACT, on the other hand, being a bit autistic and not really knowing the unwritten rules of politics, would probably say, ‘Christopher Luxon is a fine man but we don’t know what he stands for, and we don’t agree with his Labour-lite policy programme. If he were a true right winger, he would stop school lunches, get out of Paris, crack down on dole bludgers and cut taxes,’ or something similarly uncouth that would offend political niceties.
