This week has seen something rather dramatic explode upon the political scene: for several weeks or months, various entities and people had been trying to keep a lid on this timebomb. That course of action is no longer tenable. I suspect it will inevitably lead to a by-election by Christmas as the person responsible can no longer command the confidence or respect of their colleagues and will be ‘tapped on the shoulder’ and told their services are at an end.
I am referring to the opinion poll showing the Labour Party at 33 per cent, which, unless I am very much mistaken, will see a by-election in Mount Albert before too long.
On Tuesday it was a surprise to me to see an almost hysterical Prime Minister answering a fairly innocuous question from David Seymour: clearly under pressure, shrill, mangling words and with the demeanor of an eight-year-old girl who has been told to sit down and behave herself by a naughty monster who doesn’t realise she’s a fairy princess. Seymour’s supplementary questions only further exasperated Ardern, leading me to wonder if she was going to burst into tears at the thought of how unfair her life apparently is.
Labour’s support is now back to what is their long-term average during the MMP era (excluding 2020), although in the two elections prior to MMP (1990 and ’93) their vote wasn’t much higher. Being becalmed at this pesky level of support for 30 years must be enormously frustrating. It should be glaringly obvious to Labour Party bigwigs that, like Shearer, Cunliffe and Little, Jacinda Ardern is not an electoral asset any longer.
In 1973 as the Watergate scandal (another fake, media-created load of twaddle) started heating up, Richard Nixon famously shoved his press secretary towards the White House media pack: “Do your job!” A similar thing was done this week when a ludicrous – and entirely fake – poll ended up being reported in the Herald and Stuff at the behest of the Labour media unit. There was complete silence about the Roy Morgan poll, but publicity given to the implausible one that showed the socialists are not yet dead. Oh please.
One suspects that various people in Labour may be spending the weekend and week-long recess discussing when Ardern should be replaced and what the ‘story’ will be to justify her departure. Maybe they will blame the cost of living payment stuff up on her? (‘Treasury warned us of problems, but Ardern made the decision’); maybe inflation in general (‘We tried to warn her, but she wouldn’t listen’); maybe bullying of backbench MPs (‘We could no longer turn a blind eye to her hypocrisy’).
Whatever excuse is used, I suspect it will be swift and devastating – reminiscent of the 18 hours it took to bring down Kevin Rudd in 2010, rather than the long drawn-out and clumsy coup against Jim Bolger in ’97.
Unfortunately for Ardern, she isn’t exactly ‘worldly wise’ and doesn’t exactly possess a finely tuned radar that would spot it coming. As such she won’t be able to select a successor, which she could do if she voluntarily started browsing zillow.com for New York apartments and rallying colleagues around a particular candidate.