A road back for Cunliffe within Labour?
I doubt it. But this could be but a hiccup in a long political career for Cunliffe.
The beleaguered MP would do well to take a leaf out of the political manual of both Peter Dunne and Jim Anderton.
As Anderton said – “You don’t leave a political party, it leaves you”.
Both of the above Honourable Members split from Labour in the ’90’s, possibly after coming up against Rainbow/Liberal Labour.
Labour in the ’90’s was like Roald Dahls, “The Witches”. Young, well meaning, middle-class male pollies were being stitched up by the Labour women like Mallard, King, Clark and co in their pursuit for the popular left wing vote. These individuals weren’t progressive enough and were sidelined by the usual political infighting for no worse than not being ‘progressive’ enough.
This was my first encounter with the Wellington Beltway, and the start of my interest in politics.
As a uni student you could easily find yourself listening to the musings of politicians in the usual spots. The Ox was one and you could get quite an interesting perspective just by sitting in the Back Bencher of an afternoon and lending an ear. There was a frankness by MP’s, to the general public then, that you don’t see now in these days of Patrick Gower and Garner et al.
As a pisshead (back then) I blended into the undergrowth and was rewarded with some interesting insights.
More than one politician, not in Politics today, came a cropper at the hands of those who have seen off the machinations of Cunliffe. Bohemians like Mallard were fine, but others got crop dusted.
Fast Forward 20 years:
Cunliffe’s electorate, New Lynn, supports Cunliffe fully. He’s got the electorate sewn up come 2014.
If I was a betting woman I would say that the next obvious move for Cunliffe is to resign sometime around Feb, and take new Lynn again in 2014.
I’m a housewife and don’t have time for complicated calculations, but I imagine that would put some shrivel in the Mana party as the dissaffected vote moves to T-Labour.
And if Hone survives the next election, there could be some interesting confidence and supply agreements, with the major parties courting Dunne and Cunliffe and Hone throwing a spanner in the left wing works.
Talk about Deja Vu.
