When people in focus groups reported having voted Labour in the past, but reported planning to vote National in 2014, they were often asked: “why have you changed your mind?” In response, issues of unity, backstabbing, in fighting, and so on came up immediately, spontaneously, and repeatedly. Sitting behind the one-way glass listening to that was no fun at all.
Labour bro Rob Salmond
The Reid poll out tonight was bad. I mean, we all knew it was going to be bad. But it was at the bad end of the bad spectrum. It was not good.
Simon Bridges will come under pressure as a result.
But here is a great, timeless and unchanging conservative truth: things can always get worse.
In the face of an unparalleled crisis that gave unprecedented attention to a prime minister in her element, it was inevitable that the polls would turn against National. The extent may have been somewhat unexpected, but the phenomenon itself was foreseeable and foreseen.
But the worst result National ever achieved, in the 2002 election, was a full ten percentage points lower than what it recorded in the poll tonight. If the party would lose sixteen or seventeen seats on the Reid numbers, the bloodbath could easily be much worse.
For many MPs, the idea of being turned out into a hostile job market will not be appealing. They should suck it up. Being selected to represent the party is a privilege and when those to whom such privilege is granted engage in passive aggressive whining to the party’s opponents they abuse the trust and confidence reposed in them by those who built the institution up.
But more than that, whingeing has a self-fulfilling effect. When MPs whine to the likes of my friend David Cormack, it feeds into a narrative of dissension that bleeds into more mainstream media coverage. The public notices and the polling declines further, leading to more complaining.
If you lack markeatable skills or prospects outside the political arena, don’t go into elected politics. It is not the type of work that lends itself to job security. It is meant to be a time of service, not a career.
And, in the history of Parliamentary democracy, there are plenty of people who have lost seats when the tide went out only to regain them when the tide came in. And sometimes you don’t even need that to happen to regain a lost seat. Look at Damien O’Connor.
If National MPs feel they need to do something they need to do it cleanly and instantly. Otherwise, they need to commit to being good soldiers. If that’s something they can manage, there’s every chance of tonight’s poll being the worst of it.
If not then, well, we will see how bad things can get.
