Shane Jones makes third strategic blunder of Election 2020?

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The strategic blunders by our political leaders are coming thick and fast now.

Simon Bridges blundered by going far too early in ruling NZ First out, then Jacinda blundered by ruling out any electorate deals with the Greens or NZ First and now Shane Jones might have blundered by hinting at a run for Northland…

New Zealand First’s Shane Jones reveals plan to take down National in Northland

Relations between Simon Bridges and Winston Peters have gone from frosty to Arctic at Waitangi, and this might make things worse: Shane Jones has exclusively revealed to Newshub there’s a plan afoot to take down National in Northland, with him at the centre of it.

…ok, let’s put aside the ridiculousness that Tova O’Brien considers this no details story an ‘exclusive’, let’s look at the math and what it really says about what is happening inside NZ First.

In the 2017 election, the Northland electorate fell like this:

And the Whangarei electorate fell like this:

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Firstly, Northland is the most likely electorate NZ First could pick up IF a deal with Labour was cut, however Jacinda has bewilderingly ruled that out AND, while Shane Jones is a colourful character, he doesn’t have the charisma or charm of Winston, so why run Jones in Northland and not Winston?

The truth here could be hidden.

If Winston’s health doesn’t have the stamina for an Electorate run, that could be why Shane is standing, or NZ First are so terrified of falling below 5% that Winston will be touring the country desperately trying to drum up support.

Clearly if Jones does win Northland, he becomes the undisputed Leader of NZ First and Winston will hand him the reigns of the Party.

The importance of this hint is that Winston could be considering this to be his last election.

Is it a flawed strategy or just Shane’s own sense of self importance?

 

14 COMMENTS

  1. Well, … the truth is all good things got to come to an end and its the same with the wildwood weed…

    So if Winfred, our longest serving politician needs to take time in retirement , he needs a successor… now Ron Mark and Tracey Martin are brilliant, but NZ First needs a social conservative charismatic personality… well they have that in spades with Brother Shane.

    But how much is rhetoric and how much of that is tempered by the NZ First party membership machine?

    I think you will find that Jones will forge a beachhead but once that beachhead is achieved, he will settle down marvelously into the role of leader of NZ First. Or, alternatively , will be happy to don the role of ‘bovver boy’ while more moderates will rise to leadership. Such as our credentialed ex SAS member or the brilliant female long server.

    Jones is the voice of the rural and the anti neo liberal.

    He’s good in that role.

    But I’ve got a feeling , that a certain ex SAS member or a long term female server of the party will ultimately rise to leadership. Both options will be good. Either or.

    But Shane Jones?

    We need his earthy rhetoric.

    No doubt about it,- he will be kept on in some capacity or other. And his contribution to NZ First will go down in history as one who advanced that party’s fortunes and who didn’t shrink back from from saying what many of us are thinking.

  2. Which begs the question…”Are we voting for the right parties”? Indeed are any of them worth our time at this juncture?

    • If Matt King can walk around with handcuffs and a Trump hat then Jones can push him around with Kiwi rail and some bridges. They’re really going to have to take it to the National candidate.

  3. The numbers do make it painfully obvious that an electorate deal is needed between Labour and NZ First. Labour arrogantly still feels it has the moral high ground or something, but it will not be worth a tin of the proverbial for the rest of us cast back to Nashnull attacks again.

    As an aside…Northland and Whangarei are two electorates I feel have long been held back by the Māori seat of Te Tai Tokerau, because it removes a good number of working class voters from reversing the very bad Northland habit of voting tory. Sure there are a number of farmers, retirees and conservative country folk (often sitting on stolen land), but there is a degree of false consciousness too, where people that should be voting Labour/Green go against their own interests.

    There is a cultural cringe up North led by Business associations, sports clubs, Tradespeople, Lodges, Fire and Police stations–“we’re blue around here mate and you better be too if you want that job/contract/social contact” is the unsubtle message.

    There is shocking voter suppression in Northland, I have seen it myself when my partner worked polling booths . Racist farmers wives in charge of small stations not even unpacking the Māori roll in one case, giving Māori people a special vote with general papers, resulting in confused voters and disallowed votes, along with issuing specials to non enrolled people etc. etc. Hone Harawira has raised this previously too.

    Northland is a mess politically as well as economically, and unfortunately the millions being spent in the region will be unlikely to fix that in 2020 without some very smart thinking.

    • Pretty alarming stuff you write.

      Cultural cringe,… “we’re blue around here mate and you better be too if you want that job/contract/social contact” is the unsubtle message.

      And ;

      … ” There is shocking voter suppression in Northland, I have seen it myself when my partner worked polling booths . Racist farmers wives in charge of small stations not even unpacking the Māori roll in one case, giving Māori people a special vote with general papers, resulting in confused voters and disallowed votes, along with issuing specials to non enrolled people etc. etc. Hone Harawira has raised this previously too ”…

      All to be expected in southern Louisiana ,.. but this here is Northland we are talking about…

      I appreciate your post.

  4. What happens if an electorate MP wins a seat and brings in list MPs, and then dies/retires within the term of Parliament? Does that invalidate those list MPs? Does the by-election need to be won by the same party?

  5. The Northland numbers are obvious, now that NZF are aligned with Labour a deal would see National get demolished. Labour are too proud maybe, protecting their candidate, party and brand in this great democracy. Perhaps they wish to be seen as political traditionalists, by the book, virtuous.

    • … ‘ The Northland numbers are obvious, now that NZF are aligned with Labour a deal would see National get demolished ‘ …

      I certainly hope so.

      National must be kept out of office at all costs.

      And for that reason I’ll probably give my party vote to either NZ First or the Greens, whoever needs the rescue the most, and the other vote will go Jacinda as she lives in the same basic area.

      This COL is not perfect by any chalk,… but I will support it totally to keep the odious far right wing National / ACT alternative out.

    • Jody, virtuous, after rogernomics, climate change our nuclear free moment which amount to billions to be spent on roads, TPPA backtrack, hundreds of thousands of new residency visas given out… there are many things that Labour could be virtuous about, but are not, so allowing the Natz back in by virtue, is not virtue, it’s complete dysfunction.

      Sadly voters still have to vote for COL to keep the Natz out.

  6. It seems pretty clear now, that the Natz election strategy is to get rid of NZ First by smearing them through the MSM (aka the so called ‘donations scandal’ is just Graham Hart sparing some change) and therefore the numbers work for COL and Labour to go down with them.

    Who is Labour’s election strategist, Keystone Cops?

    Without NZ First and Greens, Labour could be gone burgers and COL failure to not look at electoral MP’s and getting as many as they can by not splitting COL votes, is a mistake.

    It’s like they run their election campaigns based on Natz paid MSM attack add propaganda!

    Which is well funded…

    From the meandering mouth of simple Simon..

    “Um look, I just think we want it for, uh, the advertisements and the like, you know? We want it for the things that we’re gonna need to do over the next year or so, sort of outside of the – not outside of the party but um, uh, you know, like I say we want to do some more attack ads – say we want to do another regional fuel one, say we want to do an industrial relations one. We just want to keep doing those things, right?”

    https://thespinoff.co.nz/politics/17-10-2018/the-jami-lee-tapes-a-transcript-of-the-ross-and-bridges-donation-chat/

  7. Just a couple of thoughts:

    Maybe Jacinda is also sick to death of having to deal with Winston – just like every other person who tried to work with him in the past.

    Maybe Jacinda has found that running the country is really hard work, and given the fact of having to do a deal with NZF again, she’d rather sit the next one out on the opposition benches and spend more time with her family.

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