Oh. My. God. Labour down 5.5%?
Looks like the ‘I told you so’ express is right on time…
Poll shock: Labour, Shearer take dive as Nats roll on
Voter support for Labour and its leader, David Shearer, has slumped in the latest Herald-DigiPoll survey.
The party has lost 5.5 percentage points since March, and Mr Shearer is down 6.1 points as preferred Prime Minister.
National’s support has barely moved and it is still polling high at 48.8 per cent of decided voters.
Prime Minister John Key is preferred Prime Minister for 65.2 per cent, up 2.6 points on his last rating.
How the flying Christ can Labour be down when this Government manage to self-mutilate themselves every single week? It’s because Labour have in Shearer a leader who simply has not managed to perform convincingly in any of his media interviews and who is only holding onto leadership because the faction around him are blocking any change.
So what’s the good news? The landline Herald Digi Poll is the same one that claimed Banks and Brown were neck and neck – in short it’s about as good at predictng public opinion as Ken Ring is at predicting earthquakes. Landline polls accentuate the middle class bias of having a landline (it’s why the Green Party always over perform in these polls as well – there’s no one as middle class as the Greens), but even if one takes that bias into account, this Poll is still a shocker meltdown for Labour.
Don’t worry though, because this is all far worse for Grant Robertson. There seems to be a deep belief within the factions that they will all put up with Shearer until he loses next year and then allow for a leadership coup. I call bullshit on that. If the careerist members of the Labour Party are willing to throw the next election and trap NZ under another 3 years of grinding inequality they don’t deserve to be in Parliament.
Those MPs of Robertson’s faction will not be allowed to forget they backed up and supported a weak leader and were too spineless to show any leadership.
At some stage Grant Robertson has to call David Cunliffe and build a better Labour Party now. If Key wins the next election, his policy changes become entrenched and even if the left win 2017, all they will be doing after 3 terms of National is stem the hemorrhaging rather than advance their own policy agenda.
Pick up the phone and dial Mr Robertson, the country needs a functioning Opposition and Shearer simply isn’t providing it.
What else can one expect when the most vocal supporters for David Shearer are the entire Herald editorial team, Whaleoil, John Armstrong, Favid Farrar and Fran O’Sullivan?
Grant Robertson is not left wing.
The right wing in labour are laughing there heads off right at this point. They must love the fact the can do no wrong, and the can talk mournfully about the need to get the middle vote. Working stiffs need to stop voting labour – these parliamentarian labour bastards only know mode of operation now – betrayal.
I’m all for getting rid of Shearer, and all the Labour MPs who put him there, but to base a post on a digi poll? Come on Bomber, a bit whaleoil-ish don’t you think?
I come here for the other side of the story, not the other side of bullshit.
There’s no need to reference made up stories when you are pointing out Shearer’s failures.
I still haven’t forgiven Helen Clark who, in retrospect, seemed more interested in landing her plum job at the U.N. than saving this country from a “bankster” lead government.
I’ll be interested to see what the next Roy Morgan poll says. Since Morgan also employs calling cellphones, they are more reflective of real public attitudes…
Well, we know what the trends say.
By the way, “On the party vote questions, 11.9 per cent of poll respondents were undecided”.
It seems pretty obvious that the Labour front bench would rather lose to Key than to Cunliffe. They have to go before we can get anywhere.
And as for Shearer – how delusional and egotistical is he to not step down? Or is he just a Tory infiltrator like Douglas and Prebble were? In either case, the Labour Party needs a massive shakeup and metaphorical blood needs spilling before it can be anything but a bad joke.
Exactly.
If Labour MPs really care about Kiwi’s, then those who voted for Shearer would either force a coup or step down. Any other (in)action is perpetuating poverty. This is a fact. Labour MPs are the problem, they cannot be the solution.
Take Phil Goff for example, in 20 years he will be remembered for 2 things; introducing student loans and getting owned by John Key on live TV. What a burden on humanity. What a disgrace. Phil Goff would have done less damage to NZ if he became a serial killer instead of an MP.
Point of Order: Goff trounced Key in the debates. Key was stiff and at his most robotic. Goff intelligent and warm. Other factors involved in Key-a-Mania that year.
Haha, nice try. You and I know Goff talked more sense. But that means nothing. John Key won with a soundbite – “show me the money”
Parliamentary democracy cares little about reality, especially at election time. Soundbites, resonance and image are everything.
We will be taught this lesson again next year when Shearer gets slaughtered in the debates. And again, Labourites will be thinking – ‘but we won 2 of the 3 debates, and our policies were better’.
“Pick up the phone and dial Mr Robertson, the country needs a functioning Opposition and Shearer simply isn’t providing it.”
Since Shearer was appointed, I was worried. I gave him a fair few months at the beginning of his “leadership”, which is only shown in the word, which does not represent what we see him do.
I started being quite critical since mid last year, like some others. It grew to quite a “force” against Shearer on The Standard, as I observed. I felt the ones wanting Cunliffe to lead the party, or at least settle for Robertson, were all right.
Shearer is a liability to Labour now, as much has Gillard had become for Australian Labour over recent months. But she at least can talk without messing up her words, she at least looks reasonably capable to speak and lead. So if Gillard became such a liability for the Labourites across the Tasman, now wonder Shearer is dragging the party down to the abyss.
I am surprised Labour still get just over 30 percent with the man. No, it is time, totally overdue, to get Robertson to sit down with Cunliffe, to call a meeting amongst a wider circle, to come to their senses and send a message to Shearer. Enough is enough, Labour needs leadership, not a man too often lost for words, when a microphone is put in his face.
Last not least, having some senior Labour MPs sit and watch Rugby in a corporate box at Eden Park, at the expense of Sky City, while Labour tried to convince the public that that company is so bad and makes rotten deals with the government, that was the last straw. Shearer just slapped their hands with a wet bus ticket. Under Helen it would never even have happened that her MPs would dare to do such things!
Go and take a hike David Shearer, I am sure Helen can assist and get you another good job at the UN!
Just watched 3 news. Looks like somebody listened to you, Martyn!
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