OPINION
July 17th 2023
My apologies for the lack of letters recently, but I have been enjoying the delights of hospitalisation care of the UK NHS. My comments on the treatment can wait until a later date but I can’t resist making a couple of comments. Unbelievably when they came around with my meds, they admitted that they were out of stock of dispersible aspirin! The pressure on beds was so great that they found a spare space in my ward and crammed a bed in it. It had no screens for privacy, no access to power without a long extension cable so they had to use portable monitoring equipment, and unbelievably it was completely blocking the fire exit. I could write two or three letters on what went wrong or was done badly but as I said that is for a later date.
Anyway, lying in bed with nothing to do left me with plenty of time to read BFD, NZ Herald and Stuff (someone has to). I also had time to catch up on listening to 1ZB and seeing various clips on youtube. The upcoming election is proving to be very interesting and I checked that I am on the overseas roll. Because I am writing from a distance I may have a slightly different view as I can only go on what I access in the media.
I have seen many people’s opinions on the probable outcome of the election and many of them seem to be what they wish to happen rather than an appraisal of the situation and political climate of the country. A lot of them seem to be whatifs as well. Holding on to the thought that it will be ok for the National party if such and such happens. And what if NZ First manages to achieve 5%? What if Chris Hipkins falls flat on his face?
People seem to forget that politics is a numbers game. How is Chris Luxon going to maintain the numbers in Caucus to continue as leader of the National Party?
How is Chris Hipkins going to do the same in the Labour Party and gain control over the party within a party, the Maori caucus without being rolled?
What are the non-left parties going to have to do to achieve the numbers necessary to gain power in October? The National Party seem to have forgotten that the pursuit of power should be their objective and what numbers do they have to achieve to win that in October? If that means cultivating relationships with other parties, then so be it. Better to have a major share of power than no power at all.
How are they going to get the numbers from the electorate? I have no answer to this, but they have certain barriers to overcome, not least of which is the animosity of the MSM. How can they get their message across to the electorate, indeed what is the message? I can see no leadership extolling what life will be like under the National Party? Why should the electorate vote for National? I can see people voting to escape Labour but why should they be positive in voting National?
The Labour Party seems to be dripping support away, but where is National being proactive in gaining power? It is hard to believe that they haven’t done the research to discover the best route to the numbers needed.
Indeed if National win, will Chris Luxon have what it takes to maintain the numbers in caucus to keep him as leader?
As an aside to all this, in my dealings with foreign diplomatic staff during the course of my employment, I have been left with the impression that Winston Peters is highly regarded as a foreign minister, being professional, well-briefed and highly competent. He was regarded as being a valuable New Zealand asset.
I make no forecasts as to what the election outcome will be, except to say that most participants seem to be making heavy weather of getting the numbers needed.