10 Reasons We Lost

The Nats won’t need chairs at their first post-election caucus.

They won’t be sitting down for weeks.

I haven’t witnessed a spanking that bad since my brother stole a dozen of my dad’s homebrew and sold it at school (he would have been okay if he hadn’t tried to expand his market to the school caretaker).

But it’s not just a loss for National. Despite ACT’s gains (and a reasonable showing from the New Conservatives) it’s a tragedy for the Right side of politics in this country. So why did we (conservatives, the Right) get our arses handed to us?

Some thoughts:

• MIDDLE NEW ZEALANDERS ARE SCAREDY CATS

Forget all the forthcoming analysis by pundits and professors, there is one simple explanation for Labour’s victory that even non-paid pontificators can work out: Labour kept middle New Zealand safe.  COVID-19 hysteria was always going to reward a government that successfully (more or less) achieved one of the main functions of the state – to protect its citizens. You can argue with how ‘hard and early’ their response really was, whether a virus with a less than 1% fatality rate warranted it, or that other factors such as the economy weren’t given enough consideration, but you can’t argue that they didn’t protect the country from a disease that has ravaged much of the globe. We might have to just admit that Left-wing governments will always have one big advantage in times of external threat – their authoritarian willingness to close borders, shut down the economy and suspend civil liberties for the collective good.

Middle New Zealand ‘floating voters’ decide elections. The media’s Covid reporting scared three types of crap out of them. Jacinda and crew made sure that the worst never happened.

End of story.

• JACINDA ARDERN – COMPETENT POLITICIAN

I think ‘Cindy’ is a terrible nickname for Ms Ardern. Not because it’s sexist but because it’s inaccurate.  The best nicknames get at a truth about a person they are loath themselves to admit. Collins’s ‘crusher’ moniker, for example, points to a toughness that at times looks more like arrogant abrasiveness.  ‘Cindy’ suggests an insubstantial political figure but behind the ‘kindness’ brand, Ardern is as canny as they come. Look how she dealt with the capital gains tax proposal. She knows where the political middle ground is and it’s usually under her feet. Light weight intellectually (when has that ever been a negative in NZ politics?) she has the politician’s ability to tell people exactly what they want to hear while sounding like it was exactly what she wanted to say. I wish (I really wish) it were different, but empathy (or the ability to fake it) is a huge advantage in politics.

If she at times appears more like the Prime Emoter rather than the Prime Minister it is just her playing to her strengths. And she knows it.

She’s Helen Clark with a charm school diploma.

And a much better hairdresser.

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• JACINDA ARDERN – MEDIA STAR

There are many talented politicians. Few, however, appear on the cover of Vogue in haute couture and enable magazine owners to buy second houses when they allow them to publish their daughter’s baby pictures. Nauseating it may be but in the Age of Stupid (beginning roughly with the invention of the internet and reality TV) being an all-access, glammed up, uber-mum really helps you win elections.

During the Covid freak-out we got a Labour party political broadcast every other day, with Our Lady of Kindness updating us, her ‘team of five million’, on how we were all doing.

The bully pulpit in prime time. And boy did she milk it.

• UNFORCED ERRORS

Paul Goldsmith forgot a decimal place. Denise Lee forgot that you only get the knives out for the leader after the election. Timing is important for political assassinations. That’s why Brutus made all his co-conspirators ring the Ides of March on their calendars.

• THE LEFTWARD DRIFT

Although this will be overstated by many on the Left, Covid has sped up what has been noted in most of the Western World – a return to previously rejected, big government, socialism-lite. I doubt most of those floating voters Labour managed to seduce this time, will be up for anything radical. But it’s scary how centralized, bureaucratic, elite-led solutions (for example on climate change) that would shame a Soviet-era commissar, are now all the rage. Especially with the young.

I blame education and the music of Cardi-B.

Probably education more.

• THE MEDIA, THE MEDIA, THE GOD-DAMNED MEDIA
  They carried Ardern’s handbag for her. They know it, we know it and she knows it. The $50m Covid support package that stopped John Campbell from having to sell his Alfa Romeo on TradeMe probably helped.

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• WHAT’S THE BIG IDEA?

What was the elevator pitch, the USP (Unique selling proposition), the motivating argument, for a National government? Vote Nats and we’ll pay off our debt slightly quicker? Oh, be still my beating heart. Vote Nats and some of us will have a piddily, temporary tax cut? My legs are a-tremble.

Slash Taxes, No More Lockdowns, Free Covid Vaccinations, Open the Borders, No Carbon Taxes, Drain the Swamp…Big and bold is how you win elections.

• COLLINS – TOO LITTLE TOO LATE

Don’t blame Judith Collins. As she said it was ‘a hospital pass’. More a pass while the entire Spring Bok forward pack were bearing down on her. Given more time to sell her brand of blunt no-nonsense practical politics and the result would have been better. She was at her best when taking on Ardern over the personal responsibility aspect of obesity. Here was a clear distinction between their political philosophies. ‘Only the government can solve it’ versus ‘You have to do the heavy-lifting yourself’. Damn shame this couldn’t have been attached to a bigger, sexier issue.

• THE WEATHER

Good weather leading up to Election Day. Spring is here, tra-la-la-la-la. Let’s vote for that nice kind Ms Ardern and ‘keep moving’ into summer. We needed the original week in September when it’s usually chucking it down and winter feels like it will just never end. Makes a fella depressed. Makes a fella vote against the government.

• THE COLLAPSE OF THE NZ FIRST VOTE
  Winston nipped out for a ciggy and when he returned his party support was gone. Where did they all go?

Not to National.

So there we go. But let us not despair. Let us prepare for the long hard struggle against the forces of darkness that have now covered the land. And let us remember that while the parliamentary opposition is badly beaten they are but one form of government scrutiny. Critical media like this website are another. Fox News in the States began and thrived during the Clinton ascendancy. Christmas is coming – so buy a BFD subscription for a friend and help us to fight on.