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David Harcourt
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Posted: 16 Aug 2009 10:21 pm |
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The latest TV3 poll suggests that Labour is going backwards, rather than regaining ground, as it seeks to recover from its electoral defeat last year.
Here are the details, announced last night:
National - 58.1%
Labour - 29.2%
The Greens - 7.5%
ACT - 1.4%
Maori Party - 1.4%
New Zealand First - 1.0%
United Future - 0.2%
In the preferred prime minister stakes, the ratings were as follows:
John Key - 51.6%
Phil Goff - 6.5%
Helen Clark - 9.1%
Winston Peters - 2.6%
The particularly interesting thing about the leadership poll was that Goff's rating has fallen to 6.5% from 9.1% in the previous poll. While Key's honeymoon with the electorate seems to be continuing, the seemingly ineffectual Goff appears to have emerged from his period of grace, and is being savaged by the media and voters alike.
What surprises me is that no-one has started to call him "Phil Goof". Before the year's out, this nickname will have begun to stick.
You read it first here, on TUW.
Labour leader Goof - a recent photograph:
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David Harcourt
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| Joined: | 31 Dec 1969 |
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| Posts: | 1127 |
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Posted: 7 Sep 2009 12:19 am |
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The latest Roy Morgan poll, published this morning, confirms the findings in the TV3 poll last month: Labour is going backwards, rather than regaining ground, as it seeks to recover from its electoral defeat last year.
Here are the details:
National - 56.5% (up 3% on the last Morgan poll)
Labour - 29.5% (down 3%)
Greens - 8% (down 0.5%)
ACT - 1.5% (up 0.5%)
Maori Party - 1.5% (down 0.5%)
New Zealand First - 1.5% (down 0.5%)
United Future - 0.5% (no change)
The table below has been copied from the Roy Morgan site. It suggests that support for National has been trending up, and support for Labour trending down, since January 2007. Support for the Greens, the Maori Party and ACT, on the other hand, has been flat-lining for nearly three years.
The Greens will not have been pleased about their recent loss of support - a decline of 0.5% in their support is the equivalent of a 3.5% loss in support for National, or 1.85% for Labour - but the numbers in the poll are so small that half a dozen respondents going the other way would have produced a completely different outcome. I still believe that the Greens made a serious mistake when they went into the last election having ruled out cooperation with National (other than in the most diluted form).
The Maori Party, on the other hand, must be congratulating itself on having taken the risk that it did. The bad news for Labour there is that every day the Maori Party remains in a coalition with National that works marks another small degree of separation between the Maori Party and Labour. Young Maori in particular are likely to find the Maori Party an increasingly more attractive proposition than Labour.
What can Labour do to reverse this? Up to this point, the principal tactic (see, for example, virtually everything Shane Jones has had to say since the election) has seemed to be to criticise the Maori Party at every possible opportunity. This seems to me to be an incredibly stupid approach to a problem which Labour continues to underestimate - but then, with the number of problems it has, I suppose that it must be difficult to get the approach to any of them right.
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David Harcourt
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Posted: 19 Oct 2009 10:46 pm |
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Another TV3 poll shows a continuing decline in support for Labour.
Here are the details, announced on Sunday night:
National - 59.9%
Labour - 27.2%
The Greens - 6.9%
ACT - 1.7%
Maori Party - 2.4%
New Zealand First - 1.0%
In the preferred prime minister stakes, the ratings were as follows:
John Key - 55.8%
Phil Goff - 4.7%
Helen Clark - 8.2%
Winston Peters - 3.0%
Overall, the fortunes of the Coalition partners are steadily improving, while the Opposition parties continue to do badly. The gap between them has widened by nearly a quarter in the last two months. It was 23.2% in August and is now 28.9% (August figures in brackets):
Three main Coalition parties: 64.0% (60.9%)
Three main Opposition parties: 35.1% (37.7%)
And this is in the tail-end of the worst recession since the War!
Support for the Greens is falling even faster than that for Labour: it has declined by 9.2% in just two months. The numbers on which this report of voter interest are based are tiny, of course, but this will be a trend to watch.
The dumping of Sue Bradford, which would seem to represent an effort to move towards the centre, leaves Jim Anderton and Keith Locke as the only remaining apostles of undiluted socialism in our Parliament. How ironical that there is no place for such voices in the nominal socialist party, Labour, which seems to be trying to re-invent itself as some kind of European peoples' friend party along the lines of those in some Scandinavian countries.
Sue Bradford was one of the last surviving members of a vanishing species:
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David Harcourt
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Posted: 29 Nov 2009 10:16 pm |
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The ratings of the parties in TV One/Colmar-Brunton's latest poll, the results of which were announced last night, are as follows:
National 53%
Labour 31%
The Greens 7%
Maori Party 3.4%
ACT 2.2%
The most striking aspect of the poll, however, was Phil Goof's decline in popularity. He is now the preferred prime minister of just 5% of voters (down from 9% a month ago), versus 54% (up 4%) support for John Key.
It hardly seems possible that Goof can become any less popular. Surely he still has the support of his immediate family?
I think we should be told.
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David Harcourt
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Posted: 10 Dec 2009 10:04 pm |
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Another poll; another nail in the Goffin.
The latest Roy Morgan poll, published yesterday, shows that support for Labour is continuing to decline. Here are the details:
National - 53.5% (up 1.5% on the last Morgan poll)
Labour - 30.5% (down 2.5%)
Greens - 7% (up 0.5%)
Maori Party - 3.5% (up 1.5%)
New Zealand First - 2.5% (down 0.5%)
All others - 1.5%
The next poll will be particularly interesting. It has been all bad news for Goof in the past few weeks. What no-one is saying yet, but I strongly believe to be true, is the only reason he is still the party leader after Foreshore & Seabed Debacle #2 (or Son of Foreshore & Seabed: call it what you will, the amazing thing is that having punched this tarbaby in the face and got stuck there once they have gone and done it again after prying themselves loose! Are these people dumb or what?) is the lack of a viable alternative.
Andrew Little + the brightest female in the Labour Party (whoever this person may be) would make an infinitely better team to lead Labour into the next election, but Little doesn't have a seat in the House and seems to be sticking to Goof for the moment. Shane Jones, often touted (mainly, it must be conceded, by Shane Jones) as a future leader of the Party is as repellent to his parliamentary colleagues as he is to anyone outside Parliament who has had the misfortune to meet him. And David Cunliffe and the rest are simply non-starters, whatever they and their mothers may think.
How different the Annette King/Goof team is from the salty, flamboyant characters who have held senior positions in the party in the recent past - people like Clark, Cullen, Lange, Moore and Kirk. After the 2008 electoral train wreck these amiable, intelligent (well, reasonably so), middle of the road types must have seemed to offer safe hands to lead the Labour Party on the road to recovery. Surely, they could do no wrong? But Goof has been a disaster. The National Party must love him to bits.
And while Labour has been having a long nightmare under the leadership of Goof, John Key continues to have a dream run. The review of the anti-smacking legislation was a brilliant success for the National Party. The ACC imbroglio looks to be settling. The relationship with the Maori Party has withstood some major tests, and the Maori Party and Labour seen to be further apart than ever. (Thank you, Shane Jones, for your continuing contribution here. It is sincerely appreciated.) It seems that the news from Copenhagen will be better than expected, and John Key will be there. Everywhere the economic news is getting better and better...
I see Labour losing as much as another 2% in support by the end of the year.
How sad this will make me.
A National Party official reacts to the news that Labour leader Phil Goof has avoided a spill in the Labour Caucus:
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David Harcourt
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| Posts: | 1127 |
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Posted: 20 Apr 2010 02:32 am |
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I haven't bothered to update this thread for four months because there's been no change in the fortunes of the political parties. How much of the same it all is can be gauged from this story in yesterday's (19 April) Dominion-Post:
No bounce for Labour despite controversy
Labour's much-anticpated bounce in the polls has again failed to materialise. Some Labour insiders privately said they'd be surprised if controversy over mining, GST rises and the foreshore and seabed did not affect the Government's popularity. Last night's TVNZ-Colmar Brunton poll gave no hint of that. National won 54 percent and Labour 33 percent. The Greens were on 4.7 percent, ACT on 1.8 percent and the Maori Party on 2.1 percent. The news was no better for Labour leader Phil Goff, who got 8 percent supprt to Prime Minister John Key's 48 percent.
No mention of New Zealand First, which I trust means that the egregious Winston Peters will remain in the past, where New Zealand needs him.
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David Harcourt
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Posted: 11 Jul 2010 11:33 pm |
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Great news at last for Labour!
Just kidding. The latest Roy Morgan poll (which, if I recall correctly, is usually the one showing the highest level of support for Labour, and narrowest margin between it and National) shows the parties' support as National 53% (up 2.5%) and Labour 29% (down 4%).
The Dominion-Post attributes Labour's poor showing, in part at least, to the behaviour of Shane Jones, the Labour Party front-bencher who hired pornographic movies at public expense and then declared in his defence that watching such material was something any "red-blooded male" would do.
As a male who (a) bleeds red and (b) has never watched - or felt the slightest inclination to watch - a pornographic movie, I objected very violently to this statement. It seems that I am not alone in thinking that Jones is a ghastly specimen, however, as he was swiftly demoted to the backbenches - good for you, Phil - and it would seem that his political career is over.
The interesting point here, of course, is that at last we have someone about whom it can be said that he is "a wanker" without this being in any way insulting or defamatory. In Jones's case it is merely the pathetic truth.
The Man Who Would Have Been King:
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David Harcourt
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Posted: 14 Dec 2010 10:12 pm |
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Sixteen months after I started this thread with a poll showing Labour's support at just over half of National's, the news is just the same. Here are the details of the latest TV3 poll (announced on Sunday, 11 December):
National - 55.5%
Labour - 31.2%
Greens - 7.3%
Maori Party - 1.7%
ACT - 1.3%
New Zealand First - 1.9%
In the preferred prime minister stakes, John Key (at 54.1%) is nearly ten times as popular as Phil Goof. Poor old Phil reminds me of Bill Rowling, Labour's leader following the shock death of Norm Kirk in 1974. Like Goof, Rowling was a pleasant enough fellow, but fundamentally ineffectual. He was torn to pieces in the 1975 election by Robert Muldoon. Unlike Goof, however, Rowling got to be prime minister for just over a year, as Kirk's deputy. This is an office which neither Goof nor anyone else expects the current Labour Party leader to hold at any point.
Phil who?
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David Harcourt
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Posted: 19 Apr 2011 12:55 am |
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Another TV3 poll - this one released on Monday, 18 April, suggesting that Labour is still going backwards:
National - 57.5%
Labour - 27.1%
The Greens - 7.7%
This is a 2.9% increase in a month for National, and a 3.8% loss in support for Labour.
According to the same poll, only 15% of all voters believe that Labour can win this year's election. Even among Labour voters, only 36% believe their party has a chance.
The amazing thing, of course, is that 27% of New Zealanders are still prepared to vote for these idiots. Imagine the chaos if they were trying to run the country! It is a truly ghastly thought.
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David Harcourt
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| Joined: | 31 Dec 1969 |
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| Posts: | 1127 |
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Posted: 11 Jul 2011 02:35 am |
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Yet another TV3 poll - this one released today, Monday, 11 July:
National - 55.1%
Labour - 29.9%
The Greens - 9.1%
New Zealand First - 2.2%
ACT - 1.7%
The preferred prime Minister polling is interesting:
John Key - 50.5%
Phil Goff - 6.9%
Winston Peters - 3.9%
Basically, the only chance of Labour's doing at all well in the election is (a) for the All Blacks to lose the Rugby World Cup in the quarterfinals (again) and (b) for several National ministers to cock up their portfolios very badly in the next two or three months.
And it does look very much as if ACT will be history after the next election. ACT's voters are bleeding to National, and Labour's are bleeding to the Greens, meaning that we basically have a two-party system once again, notwithsatnding MMP.
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