David Shearer cannot even fling muck properly. The Herald editorial suggests leaving it to those “who are more naturally tenacious than he is”. Trevor Mallard.
He would be well advised to leave this sort of work to others in his team who are more naturally tenacious than he is. Leaders have to be true to themselves to command the respect of others.
I disagree with this. Leaders need to command themselves before others can respect them. Shearer has blown this.
Labour needs him to make a public impact. He has tried the high road, getting out around the country to talk about real issues, but that made little impression on the polls. Now he is resorting to parliamentary point-scoring, which seldom moves the public but can lift his MPs’ morale if done well.
Shearer went on the road and made up a story about a man on the roof and now he has made another up about a tape that does not exist.
Mr Shearer looked best last week at centre stage in an economic policy “summit” with fellow Opposition party leaders flanking him. Unfortunately for him, that effort was overwhelmed by the missing GCSB recording. If he has to fight on this level, he will not win.
Looked best? A very low standard as no one remembers the poorly attended Friday meeting already. Russel Norman is outflanking him as Opposition leader and Shearer wasted Friday deflecting the simple fact he was set up by Fran Mold, some pillow talk and Grant Robertson.
