Left-wing political blog The Standard has published a post that is interesting because it reveals from a left-wing perspective how the Labour-led government is viewed by its supporters.
[…] THE LEADERSHIP IS OUTSTANDING. HAVEN’T BEEN ABLE TO SAY THAT FOR A DECADE.
The post starts with facts that are not in dispute. While I have zero respect for her competence as a PM I can acknowledge Ardern’s strengths. Her main one is that she is an acceptable and popular face of policies that, when fronted by dour Andrew Little, held as much appeal as a three-day-old fish and mayo sandwich left outside in the hot summer sun. Labour gained votes solely because of the change of leader. The policies remained the same so it could only have been her popularity and star pulling power that put the party in a position to successfully form a coalition government. After a succession of loser leaders, Labour owes Jacinda Ardern everything.
Economy is doing fine
Hmm, “fine” is damning with faint praise.
The government is popular, and the Coalition has been unified.
Sure it has if you don’t count all the times Ardern has had to hit certain coalition politicians over the hand with a wet bus ticket.
Labour’s financial stewardship has enabled headroom in the “bank” if something goes wrong (in most 6-year sets something usually has).
Well, that is certainly one way to spin the fact that money earmarked for roading projects has not been spent because they can’t make their minds up what to spend it on.
The Opposition have scored no hits
The opposition has been lacklustre but with the coalition being such a target-rich environment they did score some hits.
The Party will get a new President after the last one was basically fired.
The two sex scandals are not even mentioned in the post. It is as if they never happened. The president it seems was fired for no apparent reason.
They haven’t really made much impact on poverty or homelessness, the big transport projects are quite a while away, few of the working groups have fixed anything, and Labour are no challenge to any major status quo.
But it’s the most successful and popular centre-left party in the world.
Weird.
The Standard
Yes, it is a mystery to us too.
