Cunliffe’s Red Wedding
The manufactured smear attack against Cunliffe is coming from inside the Party, not outside it. It has been timed to use the 3 month loophole that was quietly built into the rules that allows for the ABCs to pull a coup without having to go through the new voting structure that saw (much to the shock of the ABCs) members and affiliates elect Cunliffe with such a massive majority.
The Daily Blog has been following this attempted destabilisation of Cunliffe’s leadership since the ABCs launched their first strike over Queens Birthday weekend. The ‘Red Wedding’ refers to the moment in Game of Thrones when a large number of characters were killed off in a deceptive move by enemies posing as friends, this attempted coup against Cunliffe is Labour’s own ‘Red Wedding’ moment.
It has been plotted and put together by National who have had the details for weeks. Someone has handed National and the ABCs the info they need to damage the Labour leadership.
ABC scabs
The Anyone But Cunliffe gang know that Cunliffe’s desire to win using an MMP derived coalition of the Opposition will put their ambitions on ice. If Cunliffe can form a majority with Greens, IMP and NZ First, the ABCs power and influence within the new Government is greatly reduced. This is happening with the background of Labour’s Party list rankings being decided and my understanding of that list is that the ABCs – with the exception of Kelvin Davis – had all faced a large amount of demotions on the list as the Party started preparing to move the older more defunct members of the ABCs to one side so that new blood could come up, so the ABCs knew their time under Cunliffe was over.
The ABCs have quietly manoeuvred knowing this loophole had been written into the rules and have waited for their moment. Cunliffe has clearly not been informed of the true level of Donghua Liu’s involvement within the Labour Party and that misleading of Cunliffe has been done on purpose. Sellout Shane Jones was overseas with Claire Trevett when Claire suddenly gains knowledge of the loophole rule and writes a column about it, the Nats seem to have been well briefed by ‘someone’ on this issue and Shane’s mates in the ABCs have also all been tipped off.
This is a manufactured smear quickly turning into an attempted coup by those right wing forces within Labour who will never allow a genuinely left Labour Party from ever emerging. These people would prefer to keep control of the losing team rather than lose control of the winning team. They would prefer to ruin Labour’s chances at the polls and gift Key another 3 years and retain their positions than beat Key and lose some of their influence and power. They deserve nothing less than our contempt.
Latest Stuff Poll and mainstream media
Timing of this coup is perfect, days out from the 20th (tomorrow) we now have another bullshit Stuff.co.nz/Ipsos poll showing Labour plummeting. Let’s remind ourselves that the Fairfax Poll before the last election had National at 54%, they of course won 47%, that’s 7% off for Christ’s sake! It’s so far outside the margin of error, let’s call this poll what it really is, a wet dream propaganda fantasy for mainstream corporate media. The timing of another biased poll however is perfect for the ABCs and a mainstream media who have refused to hold Key to the same standards as they are holding Cunliffe to are happy to troll.
The Standard in denial
When I first called the ABCs out for their attack on social media over Queens Birthday Weekend, the editor of The Standard had a mini meltdown online about me and made all sorts of silly accusations and tantrums in the comment section of a blog written by a failed David Shearer strategist. I’d suggest that the The Standard get over themselves and as the official voice of the Labour Party on line start doing some investigations as to who inside the Party have turned against the leader and set him up. The Standard readers would be far better served by some actual investigation by their anonymous bloggers rather than trite nonsense.
What war with the Left looks like
If this coup against Cunliffe is successful, it will be because the ABCs have made it happen. Their neoliberal lite agenda will use the coat tailing issue of Internet MANA as their rallying call and start hating on the Greens almost immediately. My advice to IMP and the Greens would be, if this happens, that winning 2014 is now unlikely and that each party turn to winning 2017, and doing that requires opening up a left wing front on Labour and ripping them to pieces.
Kelvin Davis and the other ABCs will attack Te Tai Tokerau, MANA should open up Tamaki Makaurau with Willie Jackson as a candidate and Waiariki and Ikaroa-Rawhiti will become battlefronts. Every day IMP and Greens can attack Labour at will, constantly siphoning off more and more voters.
The Labour Party will buy a war with the Left that will make Whaleoil look reasonable.
How the next 24 hours play out will be crucial for Cunliffe and will be crucial for any united front against the Government. If the right wing within Labour are really this selfish and this self mutilating, then burn every one of them.
Winter is coming.
If this was all real why is Key saying that he had the letter for weeks? And he waited until he was out of the country to salt the media story. Yes the left tends to rip itself apart but not this time.
What the left needs right now is the intercession of the drowned god of the Ironborn. What is dead may never die.
Another tactical move that might outflank this latest attack is organizing mass union action against poverty ,and low wages. Here we have an obvious smear campaign , nothing more , nothing less .
It is in fact , irrelevant to the real issues happening in our country.
However what is relevant is the perception of dishonesty when taken at a cursory glance , however erroneous that may be.
Mass union led rallies would give ample publicity to the real issues again. It would also give the platform to political speakers on the Left to constantly put before the nation the pernicious nature of Mont Pelerin neo liberalism.
It would also give major affirmation of their support for DC , indeed , a natural rallying point for all leaders of the left ..and in doing so.. present a united front. This would also have the effect of neutering efforts by the ABC’s to manufacture instability.
Remember when John Howard tried to introduce ‘WorkChoices’ – mimicking our Employment Relations Act , that unions in Australia mobilized a massive media and demonstration campaign that went on for months.
It ultimately caused the defeat of the Liberal party.
The timing in fact , would make such a tactical move 3 months before a general election one that not only would keep the MSM busy right up to the election but also recenter this whole gameplan into one where the Right would then be on the back foot , the Left can publicize and provide an alternative and neo liberalism can be exposed for all its failings.
Fact is the letter isn’t much better than a laundry list.
Cunliffe has nothing to hide.
But Collins is completely corrupt – or she would not still be trying to conceal her Chinese customs official. That truth will come out.
And how Key came by this piece of correspondence is, like the corruption of Shane Jones, a forensically interesting question.
My bet is that it came from Liu’s side – the Gnats and Liu having become intimately involved. They are birds of a feather.
name and shame all of them, i will start with the ones i know, hipkins, davis, nash, king, goff, o’connor, mallard, street, cosgrove, twyford, then there are the wets like parker… i know this is not the sum total, others need to out the rest
interesting how the name o’connor echoes around the house a bit, and down the road too
All this article is showing Martyn is that there is bad blood all over the left side of politics. It is obviously so bad that there is no chance of sorting it before the election, if ever. This is a terrible look for the public which is reflected in the Ipsos Poll. It is pointless rubbishing the poll when the reason as to why the numbers are as they are is staring you in the face. I think the only answer is for the Labour Party to split and form two parties – a centre left and a far left and somehow work out a way to coalesce. What a mess.
If this has been a cue attempt from inside Labour then they have just lost my vote. If David Cunliff is rolled as leader then I am no longer a Labour supporter. Internet/Mana will be my choice, anything but Labour
My sentiments exactly Margaret. Brought up in a Labour household, my father heavily involved for decades as electorate secretary to Bob then Judith Tizard and always been a Labour voter. But if I find out that this could have all been caused by those within Labour then mark my words, never, ever will they get my vote again, starting this election.
Labour lost its ability to claim being a left party with Douglas. They had the chance to refute the neo liberal power grab under Clark, and did not. It is not the left tearing itself apart, it is right wingers working for the status quo infiltrating Labour to assure dominance by elites. They will get paid whichever party wins.
Bingo!! A look into the political intrigues of antiquity will reveal this same scenario played out time and again. This not something new. Look at the factions of either ancient Greece or Rome ..
We seem to have this attitude that because we live in this day and age , that because we have a political system based on Westminster..that we are impervious to intrigue, corruption and subversion .
Nothing could be further from the truth !!! How many times must we relearn the lessons from history that subversive fifth columnists will always exist, as long as human nature is the same?
Therefore , as DC has warned just today…these sorts of double dealing destabilizing attempts will no longer be passively overlooked.
And in a way..this could be turned around to be a very positive phase in Labours history.
Attn David Cunliffe:
Get rid of the dissension in your ranks, and do it publicly. Now.
Issue your new list of MPs to vote for – true Labour enthusiasts. Blood the newbies.
Just do it, now, and then move ahead with confidence, so everything will be settled down by September 20th.
Cleanup time is here – better than later.
IfCunliffe had any balls, he would have rooted out the ABC’ers within weeks of becoming leader and thrown them out. An old style bloodletting would have been past history by election time and he could have got on with the election without looking over his shoulder all the time.
As it is – he just looks wet and weak!
I’m pretty sure Cunliffe is feeling like Julius Caesar right now.
I notice that Robertson, Parker etc. were there to back David tonight, but there was a conpspicuous absence of Mallard, Goff, King, traitors all.
If they can’t rule, then they’ll destroy anyone who gets in their way, we don’t need the Nats to destroy the left wing, it’s the neo-liberals like these lizards who are already casting us all asunder.
Your article says it all, Bomber, why the hell aren’t you in parliament?
I can only hope that Kim.com has some ammunition he can use to ruffle a few of the self-satisfied, smug feathers.
Bomber, put aside your Game of Thrones/House of Card fantasies for a second and look dispassionately at the facts.
John Key has known about this letter for two weeks.
The RW blogs have been crowing/name-dropping it for weeks.
If Mallard/Cosgrove/Hipkins et al. rolled Cunliffe before the election, they would be punished at the polls for their antics on election day and then re-punished by party members after the election. I am not saying that any of those 3 are helpful to the Labour Party/Cunliffe, but they’re also not thick enough to try that.
Now stop, and look at the line Hooton/Farrar/WO/Key et al. want you to run: “Labour/Left in disarray, ergo unfit to govern”.
And you’re running it!
OMG, this is truly too far fetched.
It would be political suicide for Labour, including the ABCers, should they challenge and dump Cunliffe now. After all the “revelations” yesterday were not the big “scandal” that the Herald writers and some other media hacks tried to present it as.
This is all stuff coming from National strategists, make no doubt about it, in their own words they have more or less betrayed themselves. Knowing about the letter for weeks, and probably knowing about more sensitive stuff, they will continue drip feeding and tipping off media and right wing bloggers over the coming weeks.
The ABCers that dream of another leader, they will rather lose the election now, as any candidate put forward now will have a mammoth task at their hands, and risk discrediting themselves for years to come.
No, this is one idea I do not share, that the ABCers would go this far, not at this point of time.
I must admit to being confused. I had thought this was all a smear attack by the Nats. Now you are telling me it’s a smear attack from within the LP.
Perhaps there is a Labour/National smear coalition. Those committed LP supporters may all dismiss this as a smear by somebody or other but committed supporters do not win elections. The wavering voters, those not sure of their of their allegiance win and lose elections.
However unfair it may seem the LP is beginning to look more and more shambolic. The latest nonsense put out concerns, a stolen hard drive, a spike wiping data and a misspelt name. For God’s sake the left needs to stop thrashing about seeking someone to blame. Perhaps it could just admit making a ball up and start releasing some policy that captures the imagination of the voters. Focusing on 100,000 people denied elective surgery would not be a bad start. The longer you moan about smear attacks the more ridiculous you look.
I’ve never joined a party, but have voted left since the late 70s. Right now NZ desperately needs a left bloc coalition government. I am inclined to think that the NActs are behind this rubbish, possibly assisted by Shane Jones, but if some of the Labour caucus are involved then I will be voting Greens or IMP. As it is a lot of the Labour MPs seem to have completely forgotten it’s roots. They don’t seem to be interested in connecting with the young blue collar workers, or educating them about what their futures will be like if the NActs get back in and bring in their new employment laws. I agree with Wild Katipo about the unions organising rallies around child poverty, low wages et.c. The Labour Party seems to be unwilling to get right into that sort of discussion anymore, almost as if it’s in bad taste. They seem to be scared of that objectionable smug phrase used by rich right wing people “the politics of envy”. But if no one gets out to young workers and apprentices to mobilise them they WON’T see how important it is for them to vote, and they sure won’t feel that politics has any relevance to them. There needs to be an information blitz about the ways in which we have gone backwards since the introduction of neolib policies, remembering that people born since the 80s have no idea about the way things have changed.
Good comment. After struggling through the Clark years when Rankin (now Mother Conservative) forced through Shipley et al’s two tier class system via her operational arm wins, the Labour party bled to a faint mauve.
I saw David Cunliffe speaking with passion and sureness about putting the jobs and training back on the table. Obviously his steadfastness has this bizarre faction ABC’s knickers in a knot, but come to think of it, many, like King, were Clark’s go to’s in a Labour govt more concerned with Cullen’s piggy bank investments than the grass roots wealth creators i.e. people. There are many who garner dislike sitting on both sides of the house but to backstab one’s own leader for personal gain seems a Little wrong.
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