My wife and I got our bicycles out last night and rode down to the new pub in Courtney Place, on the opposite corner to Downstage, I can't presently recall the name. The Greens were having a post election party there, and we joined them for a short while, sitting outside on the bench, like Derby and Joan. The night was clear, the air still, and it was unseasonably cold. As the evening wore on it became evident that a National / Act coalition would reach a 50% threshhold and would have no need for party barter - the most definitive election result since MMP started. So it was a sober night, despite the Greens having their best result yet, possibly up to nine MPs, because the Greens would have no part in government policy for the next three years, as National, and particularly Act, wind back many of the environmental and energy efficiency gains of the last few years.

People talk about "the will of the people" but what is this will? At the same time as the electorate seem to be coming to a greater understanding as to what the Green Party represents, and an inkling of the environmental problems facing the planet and us all percolates through the public consciousness, that same public has produced a government inimical to such principles - backward looking, simplistic and divisive, with the environment put in its proper place, which of course is that it exists solely and expressly for our humanity's advancement.

The Greens Ran a very good campaign, and would have gained a good deal of public credit for a principled and ethical stance on many of these fundamentally important issues. Sad then that the results of this election will sideline them again for another three years.

When we rode home, I watched a bit more of the election coverage then composed a letter to my daughter in London. I mention Jacinda Ardern, Labour candidate in the Waikato as the two have been good friends for some years and Jacinda and my daughter were flatting together in London, until Jacinda got the call to stand in this election. She was not elected in her constituency, which is hardly surprising, as it is a rich rural seat where even the cow-pats are blue, but as twentieth on the Labour list she will now be in HM opposition. I have commented before on the very deep social and political divisions in New Zealand between the rural National heartland and the urban Labour one. I decided to write to my daughter.

Letter to my daughter in London.

It's 11 pm, Saturday, 8th November 2008, and we now know that Labour are out, and the Greens of course, even though they've increased their vote, and Key and National and odious Act will be our leaders, including that dinosaur of politics, Roger Douglas - talk about Lazarus rising from the dead, or some monster from Jurassic Park. He was on TV the other night,it's still difficult to believe a man of such rigid views and blinkered understanding of our human condition ever enjoyed the power that he once had; he hasn't changed a jot - you would have thought that the world economy falling into the abyss might at least cause him to reflect for a moment on the intellectual basis of his point of view, but no, he's like an old worn out sponge, hard and unyielding, and of no longer fit for use.

Sad, but it was predicted - the polls were rather more accurate than I thought they might be, or at least, wished. I haven't actually heard, but I think from comments on the TV that Jacinda didn't win her seat, but of course as number 20 on the list , she will be in by virtue of her place on the list. So please send her our congratulations, probably a stint in opposition won't do a new MP any harm, plenty of time to make her mark, without the pressure of being on the government side.

I don't think Labour ran a particularly intelligent campaign, in fact I thought it was very lacklustre. The emphasis on "Trust" and on Helen Clark as the leader, in a presidential way, was particularly misplaced, no-one trusts politicians anyway, and whilst Helen Clark may be much admired for her hard work and political skills, she is not that popular or that loved - Helen projects an august and severe and somewhat unappealing masculine exterior which I suspect is not actually what she is like when you know her personally, hence Jacinda's high personal regard for her, but probably comes about from a woman trying to fight her way in what is still, even in New Zealand, something of a man's world. Labour should have placed much more emphasis on what they are, a socialist party, or at least a party of the left, they are for fairness, justice and some degree at least of egalitarianism, which will be much more important, indeed vital, principles if we are to survive the economic turmoil coming our way. They were at times almost apologetic for some of their major successes. They also didn't see the financial and economic crisis coming until far too late, and then were committed to tax cuts which we can't afford, but more seriously meant that Labour couldn't then criticise National for their opportunism or recklessness, and it became very hard to differentiate the two parties.

And amazingly, with Obama winning in the States, nominally at least a strong leftward direction in that country, the Labour Party really missed the opportunity to put this in a world perspective, and explain that this might actually have a bearing on the election here - that a vote for National and Act is a return to the very policies that have caused all this mayhem in the first place.

John Key was bland, nice, presentable and platitudinous. On the leader's debate your Mum noticed how he had been tutored to emphasise some of the points he was making by unobtrusively putting his hand on his heart. I think your Mum's right, no-one naturally does that with his hands but if you don't notice it, it could be a way of insinuating sincerity, whereas he's as slippery as an eel. The campaign bore all the hallmarks of that Australian chap who got Boris into the mayoralty of London, don't say anything other than in the vaguest terms, commit to nothing, announce policy, such as it is, at the last minute, wear a faint rictus smile at all times and remain polite, unctuous and solicitous, like a butler, or undertaker, for instance.

And we've just heard Helen Clark's speech, announcing she is resigning as leader, a bit of a surprise, but she's obviously made up her mind, and all credit to her.

etc. etc. Love Dad



And now we know that Dr Michael Cullen has also resigned as deputy leader. Today (12th November) we learn that Phil Goff and Annette King will be leader and deputy leader respectively, a unanimous caucus decision, without a "divisive" election. Both are able, sincere and hard working and will do a competent job, but I am not sure if either fill the disinterested observer with any more regard than a CEO of an unexceptional company. There's not much fire in their bellies (as Ralph Nader kept berating Barack Obama for recently), and many people would reckon they are to the right of the labour party, moderately so, but certainly not left wing.


I think Labour were wrong to act so quickly, another candidate, from the left, should have put themselves forward, so the direction of the party at this vital time could have been debated much more thoroughly. Or if this couldn't be done now, it should have been made plain that Goff and King were being appointed for, say, six months, with a possible election after this. With National borrowing so many of Labour's policies, Labour could now appear as "National Light", so why bother voting for them when you can vote for the real thing. (In fact, prior to the election, Labour could have said that National were "Labour Light", and why vote for them when you could have voted for the real thing. It would have been a much better election ploy than the nebulous and hackneyed play on the theme of "trust", but now the tables are turned. )

Labour are at great risk of forgetting many of the genuine policies of inclusion, fairness, justice and equality that are the raison d'etre of the party in the first place. This raison d'etre needed to be taken out of the closet and aired fully in the public arena, a vote for leader and deputy leader following robust debate from the different strands that make up the party might have been painful, but it was necessary. I think they will have cause to regret this decision.

The world is changing before our eyes, and a party stuck in the old ways will not succeed. National won't succeed in government because it's policies are even more out of time, they are naive, divisive and worst of all, anachronistic, they are policies designed in the 1980s, doomed to failure, and this applies even more so for Act, their more extreme right-wing partners. Labour, if they are to survive, and this country too, has to move to a much more directive economic and social policy. It won't be socialism but it will resemble it much more than what we have at the moment. And there's the problem, both major parties are saturated with neo-liberal, monetarist and hands-off economic dogma, both represent a major inertial force for the status quo. And when the world faces revolutionary change, the status quo is no longer tenable - Marie Antionette and Tzar Alexander were two famous historical figures to fatally find the truth of this.