Just when you thought they couldn’t get lower
Well I doubt even the most rabid supporter will defend Labour on this one. Having failed to distract attention with dredging up the Brethren’s campaign and anoymous donations (which Labour has specifically kept legal, and receive themselves), yesterday they said they would start revealing “secrets about the private lives of National MPs” unless they back off about Labour’s illegal election over-spending.
It seems there really is no gutter low enough. I think even McCarthy would be repulsed.
There is a simple solution for Labour to stop people calling it corrupt. Take action against Taito Phillip Field (giving false eveidence to the Ingram Inquiry should be grounds alone) and pay back the illegal spending.
And as I am not an MP, I can use the hypocrisy word and point out that Labour has over the years called National corrupt on multiple occassions. They called Jenny Shipley corrupt for having dinner with Kevin Roberts. They alleged National had its policies written in Washington DC. So they are being fucking precious by complaining when the blowtorch is on them.
And the difference between the cases in that there was not a shred of evidence of wrong-doing in the two cases mentioned above. In the cases of the election over-spending there are formal reports and opinions from the Chief Electoral Officer, the Electoral Commission, the Auditor-General, and the Solictor-General.
The Press Editorial sums up Labour tactic’s well:
Labour’s cynical attacks on National over election spending smack of a desperate attempt at self-justification.
But amid these claims and the mutual taunts of corruption being thrown across an increasingly chaotic House, the real issue is straightforward: whether Labour in last year’s election broke the rules by spending parliamentary funding on soliciting votes. Given that it defies belief that the pledge card was not designed to gain votes, the conclusion has to be that Labour took a calculated gamble to bend the rules and has now been caught.
Its allegations against National are designed to divert attention from this basic point and from the issue of what role over-spending played in Labour’s return to power. But the attacks, to date at least, appear based on the theory that if enough mud is thrown, at least some of it will stick.
The over-riding priority must be establishing greater accountability for the public money spent on campaigning and restoring full public confidence in the electoral process itself. Rather than lashing out at National to divert attention from itself, Labour’s best hope of retrieving even some shreds of dignity from the current imbroglio would be to work positively towards these goals.