Playing Sergeant Pepper

By
Chris Trotter
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93
10

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“It was twenty years ago today,” according to the famous Beatles’ track, that “Sergeant Pepper taught the band to play”. Unfortunately, the files on my computer don’t go back quite that far. What I can show you, however, is how “the one and only” Helen Clark taught Labour’s band to play exactly fifteen years ago today. Read this excerpt from my “Politics” column, published in the weekly business newspaper, The Independent, on 19 December 2001, and you’ll be amazed at just how dramatically Labour has gone “in and out of style” between then and now.

“WITH FIFTY-ONE PERCENT SUPPORT in the latest CM Research poll, the Labour Party is cruising towards the Year’s end on an enormous wave of public support. What is the secret behind Labour’s winning political formula – a formula which has so far eluded all of its competitors? To hear Helen Clark, or Michael Cullen, or Steve Maharey tell it, the story of Labour’s success is a simple one: “Under-promise and over-deliver”.

According to this theory, New Zealanders no longer believe in big promises – so don’t make any. Nor do they expect “the gummint” to do very much of anything to help them out. So, keeping those small promises, and, even more astonishing, actually doing a little bit more than you promised, leaves the voters feeling pathetically grateful.

More cynical observers point to Labour’s utter infatuation with opinion polling and focus groups. Its apparatus for taking the public pulse is state-of-the-art, and provides the political leadership with more-or-less instant feedback. Knowing how the electorate is responding to Government policy allows Clark and her ministers to remain in lock-step with public opinion. As the French revolutionary, Danton, is supposed to have remarked, seeing a throng of Parisians passing below his host’s window: “Excuse me, I am their leader – I must follow them.”

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But these explanations are simply not sufficient to explain Labour’s almost effortless domination of New Zealand politics. Somehow, Clark and her colleagues have plugged themselves – or perhaps that should read “found themselves plugged” – into the zeitgeist of the early 21st Century.

Nothing else can really explain Labour’s apparent imperviousness to 2001’s political disasters – and there have been a few: the Hobbs and Bunkle allowances scandal; the Peter Davis brouhaha; the scrapping of the Skyhawks; the fiscal implications of Michael Cullen’s Super Fund; the underwhelming impact of the Knowledge Wave Conference; the Colonel’s letter and the General’s shredder; Air New Zealand; the war in Afghanistan; Bathgate-gate. It’s a pretty long list, but in spite of them all Labour remains 21 percentage points ahead of its nearest rival. Clearly something else is going on here.

The French would call it ennui. Throughout 2001 a feeling of enervation has pervaded New Zealand society, a listlessness that renders outrage and anger altogether too exhausting. It’s almost as if the past fifteen years have left the population feeling numb, shagged-out, too tired to care. Political life is seen as being vaguely ridiculous – filled with people who very badly need to get out more. Political emotion – in particular – is almost universally seen as ersatz, fake, phoney, and too transparently manipulative to be taken seriously.

This is where Helen Clark comes to the fore. Her dry – bordering on bored – approach to the business of government perfectly matches the public mood. Politics is a bloody silly business, the Prime Minister seems to be saying, but since somebody has to do it, it might as well be somebody intelligent, experienced and unflappable – like me. To which nearly four out of ten New Zealanders consistently respond “Amen.”

Clark’s ministers take their cue from “The Boss” – presenting a public face of stolid competence almost totally devoid of colour. Like the rest of New Zealand, they seem resigned to just getting on with it, and as far as most of the electorate is concerned, that’s just fine.

The whole essence of this style of government was summed up by one of the Prime Ministers spin doctors at the recent Labour Party Conference: “Sure it’s dull”, he said, “but that’s okay. Dull is good.”

Fifty-one percent of the country seems to agree.”

I’m just not sure whether all of that is “guaranteed to raise a smile” … or a tear.

93 COMMENTS

  1. Transpose “Clark” with “Key”; “Labour” with “National”, and it’s a pretty solid picture of politics, 2016.

    The only difference is that the list of political disasters under Key is somewhat lengthier.

    And yet the public still shrug…

  2. This item is completely irrelevant to our present predicament, other than that much of our present predicament dates back to Helen Clark’s refusal to deal with the crucial issues that were brought to her attention 15 years ago.

      • The Clark government is certainly responsible for a lot of the misery suffered today by an ever-increasing underclass in NZ. It did this, firstly, by bringing a stack of nasty and, importantly, quite fundamental attacks on the social welfare benefit system, much of which went under the radar. And then secondly, by failing to quell the shift in ideas about welfare that National destroyed in the 1990s. Labour’s welfare policies under Clark were a continuation of the Shipley/Richardson war-on-the-poor that the nats now gleefully took over leading from Labour in 2008. National can now do what it likes because that approach to welfare is accepted by everyone, including Labour. It’s cool and “correct” to hate the poor. Heck, Labour even votes with National on war-on-the-poor legislation now. And under Andrew Little there’s been not one suggestion things are going to be different.

        • Twaddle.

          If your mind doesn’t go back that far, it was a period if nearly full employment. Benefit levels, even thinned down benefits, could still pay rent. What was needed was a boost of incomes for struggling working families, or such was the reasoning. Different circumstances, different solutions.

          It’s true that Labour didn’t reverse the benefit cuts suffered under Ruth Richardson. But remember, those cuts were introduced in a Key-like effort to balance the budget during a period of recession after the 87 crash and thus caused much dislocation, particularly coming as they did without notice.

          By the time Labour came around, times looked better and there were other, higher priorities. After several years of prudent saving: the Cullen Fund, Working for Families, Student Loan help, along came Kiwisaver.

          I was one who argued that more should have been done within Kiwisaver, for the poorest, maybe even a mandatory system linked to the Cullen Fund, but I fully understand the government reasoning, without fully embracing it. (The last time that was tried…remember the dancing cossacks?

          Andrew is probably too cautious, maybe a tad too small-picture, but the mantra of under-promise and over-deliver is still not a bad one.

          • “By the time Labour came around, times looked better and there were other, higher priorities. After several years of prudent saving: the Cullen Fund, Working for Families, Student Loan help, along came Kiwisaver.”

            None of those things helped the very poorest. And on top of this Labour took away the special benefit, as well. If you had no job and/or no children you got shafted by Labour. You’re right about one thing: that when Labour came around there were higher priorities than reversing the benefit cuts, despite ‘times looking better’, not because ‘times looked better’.

          • “None of those things helped the very poorest.”

            How would you know? I remember one lady on TS not that long ago, replied and rebuked you, she detailed her circumstances and the support she had under the Labour government. Quite the opposite from this National government that you never criticize, ever. People feel that can get a shot at getting ahead under Labour, they certainly don’t under National, they get pushed back and squeezed.

          • how would you fucken ‘know
            words..?

            peddling yr revisionist bullshit..

            i lived it..raising my son at the time..

            and i will always loathe clark/those fucken neoliberal sellouts..for those reasons..

          • i’m not talking about how i ‘feel’…

            i’m talking about the facts of the matter..

            clark did not lift a finger to reverse any of ‘strewth’ richardsons full on assault on the poorest..

            she made it worse by axing special-benefits..

            what bloody ‘facts’ are you talking about..?

            you didn’t bloody well live it..did you..?

          • You wouldn’t know, so you can assume all you like, but assumptions are often wrong. No party is perfect, there are a lot of things that Clark’s Labour could have done but didn’t, but they did introduce some support that did allow people to get ahead so howz it going under National then? Better? Putting my experience aside, everyone I know say they had it better under the Labs than the Nats that are making people jump through, often times, punishing hoops. The current Labour party is not the Clark Labour party or any other Labour administrations of the past. IMO Labour deserves a fair hearing like other parties Like I have said before, I cannot blame this current Labour party for previous Labour governments just like I cannot blame the current National government for Muldoon, Shipley Bolger, Sidney Holland and so on.

          • “everyone I know say they had it better under the Labs than the Nats”

            Well you obviously don’t know the poorest of the poor because the legislation Labour introduced that was aimed at that group speaks for itself. What do you think was at the heart of the CPAG action?

          • complete bullshit..!..nick…clark/labour declared war on the poor/the ‘undeserving-families’ as she called them while pimping her middle-call welfare for those ‘struggling on $75 graand a year’..(her quote..)

            (and a special weasel-words-award to you for ‘thinned down benefits’..eh..?..why..!..it almost sounds healthy..!..)

            and another one for ‘there were other,higher priorities’..aka pandering to uncaring tory swing-voters..who just lapped up her poor-bashing..)

          • Far from holding the nats to account, Labour’s propped them up. You say voting for nat government war-on-the-poor legislation isn’t propping them up? That’s why we need to stop this rot within Labour now. Little has said nowhere that this sort of behaviour will stop. Labour’s said nothing anywhere that its position on benefits and the poor has changed. I keep asking you for that proof when you say that he has, but he hasn’t, which of course means that you can provide nothing to back up what you say. All you can do is resort to lies and abuse like “you’re a nat troll”. You make me fucking sick.

          • Ditto, you are sickening and you are a nat fan troll and I am not the only one that has said that to you here and on TS.

          • [Offensive remark deleted. One more like that, Chris, and you can have time out for a couple of weeks. – ScarletMod]

        • Rubbish and “Andrew Little there’s been not one suggestion things are going to be different.” Not so Nat shill, you haven’t been paying attention.

          • Show me where Little says things are going to be different for beneficiaries and the poorest NZers, Loftie son? You will not because you cannot.

          • You have been trounced a number of times over your repetitive bull on TS as well. For example, a number of measures were raised on the Future of Work announcement that you could not be bothered with, including changes to welfare, so it is no longer demonizing and punitive. And that is just for starters. Not my problem that you refuse to keep up.

          • So now you have to resort to bare face lies, Loftie son? FFS, why can’t you just accept that this what Labour’s done? It’s all on the statute books, FFS! All you have to do is read.

          • I am not telling lies Chris, you are, ever thought of following up on your own advice, why can’t you ever acknowledge or even criticize what the current government has been doing for the last 8 years? Not a peep out of you over that. Because as you posted earlier on another thread, you think criticizing Labour is holding the National government to account. That’s what you said.

          • “…you think criticizing Labour is holding the National government to account. That’s what you said.”

            Yes, and that’s my point! You must hold the opposition to account in order to ensure that they do their job properly. Why can’t you understand that?

          • Holding the opposition to account does NOT hold the National government of 8 years to account. Why can’t you understand that?

          • I am not telling lies Chris, you are, ever thought of following up on your own advice, why can’t you ever acknowledge or even criticize what the current government has been doing for the last 8 years?

          • In fact, ? Not a peep out of you over that. Because as you posted earlier on another thread, you think criticizing Labour is holding the National government to account. That’s what you said.

          • For a start I am not a wee loftie or your son, so enough with that condescending attitude. You are being mischievous. Annette King is talking about health, and as she said to Vernon Small, (like most in msm, a nat sycophant) “stop putting words in my mouth.”

            “Just like the past eight elections’ is an old and tired nat shill meme that doesn’t mean anything, besides this current Labour party under Andrew Little is not the same as others past and is untested in government, so your assumptions could turn out to be completely wrong, as most assumptions usually are.
            Labour is not going to run on everything, and saturate the campaign as in 2014, as the campaign in Roskill proved, people will get a good picture of where Labour is heading. It is amazing how National supporters never demand the same level of detail and scrutiny of National, as they demand from National’s opponents.

          • Labour hasn’t given a jot of detail about welfare over the last eight elections. You’ll continue to receive condescension for as long as you lie and abuse, Loftie son.

          • That’s rich coming from a Nat who pretends to be something he is not. It’s clear where the lies and abuse is coming from. You.

          • So Labour doesn’t see health on the main priority list? Fair enough. But prey tell what are National doing right here and right now? I’ll tell you, seeing as I work in mental health. Nothing, actually they are doing worse than that. In real time funding( keeping up with inflation and over population growth) they have decreased funding whilst driving up immigration. The dam has burst and we have seen avoidable deaths as a result.

            Remember Chris, National are in power, have been for 8 years, what have THEY done, other than corrode debt levels?

          • +1 Bert wait for the response that tells you that what National is doing or not doing for the last 8 years is all Labour’s fault.

          • gonna go for the big-lie now are you..?..gonna claim that cursing the neoliberal-incrementalists in labour somehow makes me a ‘rightie’..?

            i’ve got more left/green in my bloody little finger than you apologists for them..

            done well out of it..have you..?

          • Words is a Labour-can-do-no-wronger. They’re a funny breed. There are, of course, slight differences between them, but I’ll refer to what Words does to paint the general picture. In fact, Words is probably the most archetypal of them all:

            1. Everything Labour says and does is good. When people say positive things about Labour Words runs around spraying pathetic “+1″s and “well said”s like confetti.

            2. Anything said that is even vaguely critical of Labour, even coming from obvious left wingers, is trampled upon swiftly with personal attacks including phrases like “you’re not paying attention”, “that’s rich coming from you”, “you love John Key”, you’re a troll for National”.

            3. When he’s really cornered about the nasty things Labour’s done he starts by denying it. Then when it’s pointed out that the proof is in the legislation that Labour passed he demands “links”. Then when it’s clear Labour’s done what you say they’ve done, for example supporting Key and Bennett’s war-on-the-poor legislation in 2014, he says Labour had to do it.

            4. When you point out the nasty things that Labour did between 1999 and 2008, that there’s been absolutely no evidence that things will be different in the future and that Labour has at no time made a stand clear stand for beneficiaries for the last eight elections, he again denies it, then asks for links, then finishes off by saying the current Labour is different from previous Labour governments or oppositions. You then ask for the the evidence and out again comes the personal vitriol, like “that’s rich coming from you.”

            5. That personal vitriol is also worth mentioning separately. A large part of it relies on criticising you for not attacking the nats. Words calls you a “nat troll” or a lover of John Key”. This sort of nonsense increases even when you point out the importance of ensuring a strong left wing opposition, and that how, for example, what Labour’s done with welfare benefits is in fact to support that nats’ attacks, and to normalise the negative attitudes towards the poor. But no, when things get to this level Words goes into complete shut-down mode which involves turning almost everything you’ve said around and blaming the you for not targeting the nats.

            6. When all else fails (and there’s quite a bit of overlap here with the stages outlined above) he resorts to bare faced lies about what you’ve said.

            7. The upshot is that Words and those of his ilk cannot engage on anything meaningful because anything that’s meaningful must include being open to discuss Labour’s shortcomings. Words refuses to do that. He is wholly and completely a shill for Labour. He is nothing else but that. And that makes him a danger in the extreme because by doing what he does there is no room to ensure that the opposition is strong and readt to take on the greedy hateful right wing scum that shit on the poor at every opportunity. By singing Labour’s praises regardless of what they say, what they do, what they don’t say and what they don’t do, Words is supporting collusion with that right wing scum because he isn’t focusing one jot on what’s required to fight them.

            8. The fact that Words does not accept any criticism of Labour at all, and that he blames the nats for absolutely everything that he does not agree with, makes him a troll. And a troll of the worst kind, I might add. This is because he gets away with his behaviour because of the forum he chooses to use: go on a left wing blog like TS or TDB, say Key and the nats are bastards and that Labour’s great and nobody blinks an eyelid. But when you look closely at his MO he’s not engaging or discussing, merely pushing his own barrow, which is “Labour good, National bad”.

            9. I agree that National’s bad, but if we’re ever going to learn from history in order to fix the future then that attitude is highly destructive. Labour-can-do-no-wrongers are very very dangerous to the objectives of the left. What’s interesting, though, is that when you look a little more carefully at what they say and how they operate they’re in fact trolls in their most purest form. And for this reason blog sites, regardless of their political tendencies, should not tolerate them.

          • Deep, Loftie son, deep. You’re going to have to forgive me by needing to take a couple of days to properly digest what you’ve said.

          • [Comment deleted, if belatedly noticed. No more of that kind of language from either of you, Chris. – ScarletMod]

  3. You’d have to look at that list of supposed scandal and say — shit — the electorate’s skin has hardened significantly since then with regard to what constitutes government failure.

  4. if you are right in your comparison with the ennui of 2001 then Bill ( and bubbly Paula) will win….cant see it.

  5. Yet another Chris Trotter view of a bit of history that suits his overall goal which appears to be the destruction or invention of his mythical ‘conservative left’ that he has just created…Helen Clark was about as left wing as Roger Douglas…

    • I don’t think you get what Trotter’s saying. He’s not saying anything about whether Clark was a right winger or not. I personally think she was, but Trotter’s talking about something else: leadership, strategy, winning elections etc. I wouldn’t be surprised if he thought Clark was a right winger, too, but that ain’t what he’s talking about.

  6. iT could have been 100 year reign except they ignored the most important of promises the restoring the level of pre richardson financial help. from there their the heads went so far up themselves they couldn’t see anything but a halo of their own self importance. when it came to the vote the public was conned that key was in fact the new messiah of the left, and the labour was what we had known all along since 84 …NEO’S

  7. Let’s consider the landscape outside any left or right paradigm or beliefs.
    Let’s leave the past behind for a bit and focus on the now and healthy plans and brilliant ideas to turn our economy around. They are out there.
    The same ole same ole rehashing is getting boring and not even that relevant today – is it ?

    Let’s dig a bit deeper and consider the secret government, the evil Deep State that controls most governments; most banks and the MSM.
    Let’s stop focusing on what is not very important and start to expose that which is EXTREMELY IMPORTANT and needs questioning, exposing and possibly prosecuting.
    And while we’re at it, let’s ( ? ) have a few laughs about all this with Lee Camp’s latest — ” REDACTED TONIGHT ” just out :

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hcfjhEd38so

    Let’s focus beyond the disgrace that Helen Clark is, especially now as she deeply swims with the U.N. towards the World Government plans and agendas.
    ” Corporate elitist sell-out queen ” who brought us more 1080 and GMO’s — ETC. and bad blood history with the Maori’s among others.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D6-rooWoPFc

    • The fact is, it makes no difference whether NZ is governed by ‘left-leaning’ or ‘right-leaning’ people, they are ALL working in conjunction with banks, corporations and opportunists to destroy the sustainability of NZ and bring about faster warming (leading to worse droughts, more torrential rain and flooding, rapid sea level rise, financial, economic and social ruin, and eventually extinction of most species on this planet, including humans…..probably around 2050, the rate we are going).

      ALL political parties promote the continued burning of fossil fuels, not just for what might be considered essential reasons like preventing children from dying from pneumonia, but for purely trivial purposes like Santa parades and motor racing.

      ALL mainstream political parties promote Fractional Reserve Banking and the charging of interest on money created out of thin air.

      It therefore follows that ALL political parties are criminal organisations.

      However, since the entire system has been set up to facilitate the short-term agendas of banks, corporations and opportunists, criminal behavior is legalized, and political parties and politicians are given ‘free passes’ to bring about destruction of NZ society and the eventual ruination of everything.

      It is bizarre beyond belief.

      Meanwhile, atmospheric CO2 continues to rise at an ever faster pace, ice at both ends of the planet melts (or fails to form) and environmental catastrophes increase in frequency and magnitude by the year.

      The current ‘leadership’ transfers ALL the horrendous costs onto coming generations. And if National were to be replaced by Labour we would simply get more of the same. More business-as-usual with no regard for the repercussions. And ‘no one’ cares.

      I personally believe we have until about 2020 before critical energetic and financial tipping points at reached, but we have clearly already gone past numerous environmental tipping points and are headed for absolute catastrophe, which will arrive quite soon.

      Instead of taking action to prepare for the ever-worsening environmental predicament and its various manifestations, politicians demonstrate a completely irrational determination to do nothing except promote business-as-usual that makes everything far worse faster.

      https://scripps.ucsd.edu/programs/keelingcurve/wp-content/plugins/sio-bluemoon/graphs/co2_800k.png

      • Exactly – as usual I agree with you and appreciate all you write and your wisdom. It is true that all political parties are criminal organizations but I believe there are a few rare spirits trying within the system to make some good changes.
        2020 is coming soon – Industrial Hemp could turn everything around and move us away from oil but the will to promote and fund it is just not alive and well here in NZ.

        Sometimes I have a dream that the masses come together and take over our govt. and quickly and massively make some serious and healthy changes. Then I wake up.

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