Posts by giovanni tiso
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Speaker: An Open Letter To David Cunliffe, in reply to Keir Leslie,
As I said, Clayton is a different thing. It's not about the leader, it's about Clayton. Same with Nash. They weren't trying to undermine the leader, they're just self-centred.
So you're saying some people did work harder at their own election than at the party vote, exactly as Cunliffe said, but it doesn't matter because they weren't actively doing it to undermine Cunliffe? Uhm. Okay.
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Speaker: An Open Letter To David Cunliffe, in reply to Sue,
Maybe I'm missing some political gene or some male gene that make this all obvious but to me and friends it seems a dumb waste of time
Elections aren't a waste of time. Democracy isn't a waste of time.
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Speaker: An Open Letter To David Cunliffe, in reply to Sue,
He didn't have to resign, that's his choice, the election is his making
Nothing less than an investiture will do for Grant Robertson? Really, what is this? To say nothing of the fact that this "expensive process" was actually a boon for Labour's media visibility and its party membership last time around.
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Speaker: An Open Letter To David Cunliffe, in reply to CJM,
Oh, wait...what am I thinking, this is the left we're talking about isn't it.....
The Greens seem to manage that fine.
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Speaker: An Open Letter To David Cunliffe, in reply to Keir Leslie,
Actually, claiming that candidates weren't seeking the party vote really is insulting to volunteers.
Nonsense. Volunteers don't set campaign strategies: candidates and campaign managers do. A person within the party told me Nash was having success in Napier by disassociating himself from the Labour brand. And those Clayton Cosgrove ads doing the very same thing were circulated after the election *by James*! This problem exists and is acknowledged even by people who don't want Cunliffe back. To pretend otherwise seems another great step towards Disaster 2017.
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Speaker: An Open Letter To David Cunliffe, in reply to Sue,
But Why force this expensive process straight after an election?
Sure it makes great media entertainment & the best fun ever for national .But if it's because none of his MPs are doing what he tells them to.
Well STFU suck it in and prove you can lead, turn those MPs around, help move labour forward.Or: why does Labour hate democracy so much? Because not for nothing, but Cunliffe won his election fair and square. It wasn't up to him to "turn those MPs around". It was for those MPs to acknowledge that the party had passed a pretty big vote of no confidence on them and that their job was to be loyal to the leader. Which some of them very plainly weren't. And "oh but Cunliffe wasn't either!" really doesn't cut it.
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Speaker: An Open Letter To David Cunliffe, in reply to Keir Leslie,
If Clayton Cosgrove was leader, I would see that as a very very big problem. But he's not.
And publishing a letter that essentially amounts to "anyone but Cunliffe" is different from how Clayton has been carrying on how exactly?
What I really don't get is the outrage. Cunliffe is quite entitled to run again. The party in all its components is equally as entitled to reject him, as they most assuredly will. Democracy wins. This race to blame him for everything, including things he's obviously not responsible for (he was a disgraced backbencher when Shearer resigned), whilst simultaneously denying things we have ample evidence for - when Cunliffe suggested some candidates weren't seeking the party vote, Robertson replied it was an insult to the party volunteers who worked so hard (!) - should make members concerned that the faction that is about to take over is very, very doubtful of its own strength and appeal.
If Robertson felt confident, he would welcome Cunliffe's challenge. Demonising the outgoing leader serves no purpose other than creating a fresh rift with his defeated supporters, however small in number they might be. Blaming Cunliffe for six years of losses, including the time when he wasn't leader, is also plainly nonsense, and if Robertson actually believes that narrative, he will fail even more spectacularly than Goff and Cunliffe did.
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Speaker: An Open Letter To David Cunliffe, in reply to Keir Leslie,
It is a big big tent.
It's a tent who regards Cunliffe as a bigger problem than even Clayton Cosgrove, I get that. And it disturbs me, because Cunliffe was chosen by the most democratic process the party has ever had. To turn around one year later and express outrage at the fact he's daring to even challenge for his own leadership strikes me as very troubling. It's also entirely and willfully blind to the huge problem of a caucus that is plainly contemptuous of the larger party.
This is all the more paradoxical since on purely political grounds Robertson needs Cunliffe to run, so he can beat him - which he will - and be fully legitimized as the leader chosen by all components of the party. And then get on with the job of rejuvenating the caucus, and so forth.
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Speaker: An Open Letter To David Cunliffe, in reply to Craig Ranapia,
I obviously can't speak to Labour's internal processes, but the best way to indicate you want a sitting MP on a substantial majority to get gone is to deselect them and dump their arses so far down the list they need a canary and a hurricane lamp.
They couldn't deselect Mallard - he had enough support in the LEC to withstand orders from above, and that's no bad thing so long as party democracy means anything - but they did offer him a list placing so low that he had to reject it (like Curran). This exacerbated the situation of MPs whose paramount interest was to win their electorate seat and not drum up the party vote, so it's not necessarily a winning strategy either.
That said, I believe it was James himself who posted on Twitter a picture of a glorious piece of advertising by ABC supremo Clayton Cosgrove in which he effectively distanced himself from Labour to increase his personal vote. And he still lost, and he still got in on the list. And that's just what having a profoundly dysfunctional party looks like (and a reminder of how pinning it all on Cunliffe or his faction is just ludicrous).
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Speaker: An Open Letter To David Cunliffe, in reply to Russell Brown,
Well there’s also the fact that about three-quarters of his caucus, including his own deputy, don’t want to work with him. I don’t really see a way around that, even if Cunliffe is returned by his party with a thumping mandate (which I don’t think he will be).
He won't be, but to lump the outgoing leader together with people like Mallard, Goff and King as someone who self-evidently needs to go is frankly a bit disturbing.