WAS IT PURE COINCIDENCE? Just 48 hours before the opening of Labour’s annual conference in Palmerston North, David Cunliffe contributes a blinder of a speech to Parliament’s General Debate. Watching and listening to the speech it’s hard to avoid the impression that the man lumbered with all the responsibility for Labour’s catastrophic 2014 election defeat was using his speaking slot to send a message to the gathering rank-and-file.
“If you’ve been wondering why you voted for me back in 2013,” Cunliffe seemed to be saying, “it’s because, when I want to, I can unleash a speech like this.” He had no need to add: “Can anyone on Labour’s front bench say the same?” Because Labour’s members were already asking themselves that question.
It’s increasingly difficult to form a clear impression of Cunliffe the politician. Blackening Cunliffe’s name, and trashing his performance as party leader, have played a crucial role in enhancing the shaky legitimacy of the man who replaced him. It has also allowed the party to avoid examining too closely the contribution of other Labour MPs to the 2014 debacle. The stories of Cunliffe’s indecision; his inability to formulate a strategy and stick to it; his obsessive and exhausting micromanagement; these are all that’s needed, now, to explain away Labour’s worst electoral performance since 1922.
And Andrew Little (the man whose winning margin was less than 1 percent) has been able to emerge from this carefully constructed narrative as Labour’s unlikely saviour. After a long run of incredibly bad luck, Little is portrayed as Labour’s lucky break. A strong and stable contrast to the unaccountably hopeless Cunliffe.
Because that is the contradiction that so many of Cunliffe’s supporters still cannot reconcile: the before Cunliffe and the after-Cunliffe. The coolly ruthless assassin of David Shearer’s hopes; the man who repeatedly reassured his supporters that he would be leader of the NZLP, and then proved as good as his word. Could he also be the hapless, accident-prone, foot-in-mouth Cunliffe who, as Leader of the Opposition, took Labour from 37 percent in the polls to 25 percent at the ballot-box?
Listen to Cunliffe’s speech carefully, and an answer, of sorts, emerges. National’s strategy, which turns out to be exactly the same strategy as that of the Crosby-Textor-advised Conservative parties in the UK and Canada, is to use the Right’s allies in the news media (and the blogs) to destroy the reputation of new Opposition leaders before the public has time to form a firm opinion of their own. Foot-tripped from the very beginning, and unable to establish any kind of secure footing, the targeted individual struggles constantly to tear off the labels being fastened to him from every quarter (including, tragically, from within his own caucus).
Cunliffe does not dispute the facts of his less-than-stellar performance as Labour Leader. There are things he knows he should not have done – or, at least, done differently. What he was trying to say in his Wednesday-afternoon speech was, in essence, two things. The first: “You weren’t wrong to make me your leader, because, when I’m good – I’m bloody good!” And the second: “I know I stuffed a lot of things up, but, never forget, I had a lot of help!”
Right wing media and bloggers destroying peoples credibility before they have found their feet, when you read “Dirty Politics” it becomes abundantly clear what John Key and Whaleoil are up to, the Natz are donkey deep into smear politics.
The way the media attacked David was just as shocking as what they are doing to Corbyn right now. It is really hard to watch and see the left actually stab the back of their leader also. I voted for David Cunliffe and then you all did the dirty on him. Attacked from the outside and from within, no wonder he didn’t stand a chance. Look at Jeremy Corbyn in the UK. After months after false allegations and character smears by the rightwing media, he now possibly faces an internal coup by dissenters in his own party! Sound familiar! Even though he was voted in legitimately by the party members, which is us.
Do you see him objectively now, like we did. It was disheartening to see two narratives forming around the man, one true and one false. But lies stick, more so than the truth it seems. We all knew he just needed the oxygen, to get the message out. The media have cleared the air now that there focus is off him. So toxic and contaminated were there alternative narratives, that many of the public never saw or heard him as we did. Dirty politics 101
Slater alias Whaleoil & Key are quite happy to destroy people even if the information is not true, as the public will believe what is reported then the damage is actually done. The Dong Lui Affair was a classic setup by Whaleoil and the National Government in conjunction with the NZ media who are feeding out of the taxpayers trough. Cunliffe got nailed on frivilous accusations, however the average New Zealander does not have the time to analyse the true situation and follow the story hence they take what the media says as gospel.
The National Government and the media are complicit in deceiving the NZ Public.
“Cunliffe does not dispute the facts of his less-than-stellar performance as Labour Leader…”
‘Screwing the scrum’ was s u c h an understatement.
What if ‘the greatest ever’ Richie McCaw
# had a penalty awarded against him every time he touched the ball
# had linesmen continuously raising their offside flags against him every time anyone else had the ball
# had the ref yellow carding him for every tackle he did
# had continuous loudspeaker commentary focusing on how poorly he was playing
# had four or five of his team pass the ball to the opposition every time they got it. and of course
# no penalties for any of the other players, and only a few lone voices in the crowd crying foul.
T h a t is what happened to David Cunliffe. Does his latest ripper speech show why so many were so afraid of him?
I noticed the government benches were mostly empty.
Are they that fearful of David Cunliffe?
I don’t think the Labour MPs are fearful of him Frank. His speech sounded like it came straight from this blog leavened with bitterness. If you rate that speech as good you have very low standards.
Well, Michael, I guess we’ll never know; there were no National MPs present to counter it.
My goodness….
That was electrifying …. no wonder they were out to get him. Cunliffe in full flight hitting on so many of the rotten tactics used to down our democracy….
No wonder the MSM were unleashed to fabricate , divert and marginalize him.
No wonder the guilty party ,… the Key led National party were fearful of him.
Something is rotten in Denmark… and something is rotten in New Zealand. In that speech lies old time New Zealand political fire and brute honesty. It is an incredible shame he got the ‘Roman ‘ treatment of Julius Caesar … the same Romans he denounced in his speech sitting across the chamber …and yet the ones also sitting amongst him.
Such an incredible shame it was and is.
Andrew Little may be ok , but he certainly lacks the raw power and delivery of Cunliffe … indeed it appears more and more that Little is the benefactor of the right wing attack machine… the question is… is that a good thing for New Zealand?
And this is why I won’t vote Labour for a long, long time. Cunliffe has passion, he has empathy, he uses the provided ammunition (of which there is an abundance) against Key and his cronies, and when he’s on form, he scores direct hit after direct hit. Little, by comparison, (and I say this as a former EPMU member) comes across as beige and ineffectual.
As long as the Labour Party is more interested in their internal bickering and petty games of one-upmanship, than actually doing what is best for this nation and it’s citizens, then they’re a lost cause and I’ve zero inclination to waste my time voting for them. As it stands, National will use every dirty trick at their disposal to undermine the opposition, and so far, Labour seems more interested in aiding and abetting them. Stand for something! God knows you’ve got a sackful of rocks to throw at this toxic government — start fucking throwing them! Or just sit on your hands and condemn yourselves to political oblivion.
what a great speech. national. the creeping jaisus of amercian [sic] empire.
He wants to lock me up for using cannabis for my health. Good riddance to him.
Good riddance is right. The Daktory was in Cunliffe’s electorate. He did not visit it once, nor has he ever shown the slightest inclination to challenge or even question the vile cannabis prohibition we live under. Just another useless politician.
Ah well. There you go !
That speech should not surprise any one who keeps even a mildly ‘weather eye’ on politics.
It shouldn’t surprise from a content point of view, (and he squeezed in plenty of that), because everything he said is absolutely true!
I’m picking there are plenty of left wing commentators out there who were gagging to say what Cunliffe said, but are compromised because ,well , of their fear of becoming one of the ‘no mores’.
It shouldn’t surprise from a delivery point of view after witnessing his conference speech, his ‘state of the nation speech’ and his election campaign speech as leader of the party.
There is know doubt that he is right up there along side Norman Kirk and David Lange as one of the best speech makers in N.Z political history.
However ,after watching that speech all I felt was sadness.
Sadness because it only highlighted the dumbing down , the anti – intellectualism that is now well imbedded in our culture and showing no signs of abating .
What was a fantastic country is now in it’s ‘race to the bottom’ death spiral.
Puerility over substance, lies and deceit over honesty, childishness over maturity.
Yep , the contrast could not be clearer. It’s there for all to see if you want to see it.
As John Clarke a.k.a Fred Dagg once said ” I say Trev , it’s a mess!!
“Listen to Cunliffe’s speech carefully, and an answer, of sorts, emerges. National’s strategy, which turns out to be exactly the same strategy as that of the Crosby-Textor-advised Conservative parties in the UK and Canada, is to use the Right’s allies in the news media (and the blogs) to destroy the reputation of new Opposition leaders before the public has time to form a firm opinion of their own.”
Yes, Cunliffe was absolutely right, he dared say what his colleagues are too frightened to say. The MSM and some known bloggers were the ones that decided the last elections, not just the last one. Dirty Politics has and is also being played by the MSM, just look at TV3 and the crap that Brook Sabin says about the Labour Party Annual Conference.
Who needs enemies when you deal with Gower, Sabin and some others. The other dirty politics journalist or “media person” is one Paul Henry, polluting the morning airwaves on Radio Live and TV3.
Cunliffe made mistakes, but he was also back-stabbed, and it was more so the rotten media, the biased pollsters, who determined the election, feeding the public endless misinformation and the message, it is all a foregone conclusion, do not even bother voting for an alternative to Key.
I heard Cunliffe’s speech, and I was impressed. My worry is, he may have held it, because he may have second thoughts standing again, and may rather decide to move on, hence is attack on the MSM and dirty politics brigade. Time will tell, whether he will stay and keep on fighting. Perhaps one day, after all, he may become PM?
100% better than the ineffectual bureaucrat Little. Even with all the knives still in his back, he can still hit many of the right notes.
David Cunliffe was and still is in my opinion, the best deal Labour has of becoming government. His recent speech is evidence it was one of the best delivered by any MP in Parliament in a long time. Regardless of the topic, the conviction and strength of belief was there, like a fire beginning to ignite, indicating quality leadership.
Through experience he knows the electorate well and what’s needed to get NZ back as an egalitarian structure once more and he’s the only one there in Labour to do it.
Despite being a forceful match for FJK in just about every respect, it was unfortunate that Cunliffe’s run as leader was left too late and far too close to an election. He needed the time to establish not only himself as leader, but also to reinforce Labour through his leadership, as a strong credible alternative government.
That fact, in conjunction with the ABCs in Labour, the FJK manipulated msm playing dirty politics, all went some way to destroy any chance Cunliffe might have had to convince voters there was a far better deal than that we have now, which is plagued with cronyism, policies promoting inequality, lies, deception, sleaze and corruption!
National nailed Cunliffe just like they did Goff and Winston in previous Elections, unfortunately mud sticks and that’s what Dirty Politics is all about, Crosby Textor have got form in this Department and it is Nationals standard MO.
Yep.
After reading Frank’s blogposts on how the Herald, along with certain rightwingers, shafted David Cunliffe, I now fear for any left-wing leader who lifts his or her head above the parapets. Truly we living in scary times.
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