Labour

Politicians the world have embraced Social Media but it is fraught with danger.

In the UK Ed Miliband might have stabbed his brother for the leadership of the Labour party but lost out to him for the award for best use of Social Media but also got severely ambushed.

This time it was David who came out on top for the way he uses blogs, Facebook and Twitter to communicate with voters. The former Foreign Secretary was a relatively early political convert to social media and became the first Cabinet minister with a blog in 2007.

“Social media enables politicians to communicate and build a two-way conversation with their constituents and the public – and that communication is vital,” said David Miliband.

…This time the battle of the Milibands resulted in a win for the favourite. Since unexpectedly defeating his brother to become Labour leader, Ed Miliband’s use of social media has been sabotaged by political enemies.

His recent #askEdM Twitter question and answer sessions were targeted by trolls who bombarded him with embarrassing questions such as, “do you feel bad about stabbing your brother in the back?” and “will you be firing the person who suggested this?”.

Heh, social media gives access but it also gives access to people like me, we watch, we wait, we slam.

Does anyone else think it is funny watching Labour MPs bitch and moan about electoral law.

Oh the irony. I wonder if he is mad because someone has complained about his signs, or just that he is the son of the devil and no one in Labour’s caucus likes him.

The other day I commented on Ed Miliband and his propensity to act and sound like an upper class twat. Well all that appears to be going to change.

Fortunately Miliband is having an operation to remove his adenoids this summer, a procedure that may result in him sounding a little less like a teenage dork. This may seem a harsh assessment but not even the Labour leader’s admirers claim that “presence” is one of his best attributes.

Miliband says the operation is not connected to any desire to make his voice more appealing to voters. Instead it is designed to alleviate the sleep apnea from which he suffers. His wife will be thankful for that, but so may Labour supporters if the operation improves Miliband’s voice. (He would not be the first leading politician to change his voice: Margaret Thatcher received coaching to change her own voice and pitch, making it less harsh or grating.)

That may fix Miliband’s issue but what one earth can Phil Goff do?

There is a poll on Bill English’s website asking about your views on a capital gains tax.

John Pagani is promoting this poll and imploring the pinkos to go hijack it. Remember when John Pagani said that Labour doesn’t get into dirty tricks?

Members of the Whale Army, are we going to let this happen?

Hell No.

Phil Goff has said he and Labour support Catherine Delahunty’s bill on pay equity. Except they don’t. It is pure window dressing.

Labour leader Phil Goff supports Green MP Catherine Delahunty’s bill aimed at achieving equal pay for men and women, even though his own party’s tactics would prevent it from progressing.

Every second sitting Wednesday the House considers local and private bills and members’ bills drawn from a ballot.

But members’ bills are all gathering dust at the moment as Labour has been trying to block the passage of Act MP Heather Roy’s Voluntary

Yes, Labour thinks forcing students to belong to a union is more important than pay equity.

Mr Goff said Labour would support Mrs Delahunty’s bill to a select committee stage, but had no intention to change tactics over voluntary student membership.

“We’ve got an opposition to a bill that’s being promoted by Act, and we’ll fight that one tooth and nail.”

Yep pure ideology shows that Labour likes protectionsim, unionism and bully tactics far more than pay equity for women.

When Labour says they support you I think it is safe to ignore what they are saying. Oh that’s right Labour supports MMP.

Two polls have come in and Labour are in trouble this close to the election.

The Roy Morgan poll shows them barely moving and the gap between National and Labour at 29.5%

The latest New Zealand Roy Morgan Poll shows support for Prime Minister John Key’s National-led Government is at 60% (up 0.5%). Support for Key’s National Party is 54% (up 1%), the Maori Party 3% (unchanged), ACT NZ 2.5% (down 0.5%) and United Future 0.5% (unchanged).

Support for Opposition Parties is at 40% (down 0.5%) – Labour Party 30.5% (up 0.5%), Greens 5.5% (down 1.5% – the lowest since the 2005 General election), New Zealand First 3.5% (up 1%) and Others 0.5% (down 0.5%).

The Herald/Digipoll shows a small recovery for Labour but the gap between Labour and National is still a massive 15.1%. They have improved that is probably their dead cat bounce after the budget.

Labour’s crippled campaign manager needs to do something dramatic. He won’t though probably because he is too busy trying to work out phase two of his underpants stealing campaign plan. The more thought put into trying to understand Labour’s campaign since the last election, the more obvious it is that Duck has adopted the underpants gnome strategy.

Labour’s equivalent of stealing underpants without understanding phase two and how to win votes includes such brilliant policies as:

1. Opposing  VSM:  Duck doesn’t realise that while university politics is a fascinating place for young Labour, the rest of the country simply is not interested. It is a bit like trying to get people to watch a game of third grade netball when the Bledisloe Cup is on. No one cares.
2. GST free fruit and veges: another dumb policy that has so many easy rebuttals. Not the kind of broad policy direction that changes the mood of the nation.
3. ECE: Free childcare without explaining who pays for it or why it is so important that the middle class require more welfare. Hard to see Duck moving this out of phase two either.
4. National Standards: The ultimate underpants stealing policy because Labour’s highly competent, well funded irregular force of guerrilla campaigners – the collective teachers unions of New Zealand – have wasted so much time opposing something the public are indifferent towards when they could have been campaigning on something that mattered.

The Labour campaign has been totally mismanaged from the very beginning. Deadwood like Mallard and Hodgson are fighting the battles of the 90s, rather than letting the highly competent new MPs like Curran, Nash, Chauvel, Shearer and Robertson change the Labour Party from an underpants stealing operation with no phase two to one that wins votes based on touching New Zealanders on issues that matter to them.

Perhaps he should consider ads like this:

ACT on Campus have published one of Labour’s student brochures. It is seriously creepy, not to mention illegal. This is yet more evidence that Labour thinks electoral advertising rules don’t apply to them.

Just look at how tiny they’ve made the Parliamentary Crest. And if you look closely, you’ll see that the full crest isn’t even there! That isn’t a problem with my scanner, it’s the same on the original. It’s printed so small that only the inside “NZ HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES” text is present. No outline and no crown on the top.

There is also no authorisation statement and the Parliamentary Crest isn’t the same size as as the Labour log as required by Parliamentary Services rules. Labour should be made to withdraw and repay these brochures and they should be prosecuted for again breaching the Electoral Commissions rules regarding promoter/authoriser statements.

front view

back view

Ed Milliband has understood what Labour needs to be saying the UK to win back the favour of voters.

Labour lost the last election because voters believed it stood for the undeserving and irresponsible, he said. It will only win again when people believe it is the party that “rewards contribution, not worklessness.”

It is a pity that Labour here under the inept leadership of Phil Goff and advised by political cripples like trevor Mallard has still failed to grasp that simple political reality.

So Chris Carter’s looking forward to working with his old boss in the New York office of the Labour Party.

Pleased to see that on Good Morning yesterday he continued to maintain message discipline.