Lame Duck Government

John Armstrong writes that the signs are increasing of Labour drifting closer to a lame duck Government.

Labour is distracted, however. The political year is barely two months old.

Yet, the Government is becoming increasingly besieged across major policy fronts, notably law and order, education and health with the turmoil in the Corrections Department, renewed criticism of the NCEA and now the debacle over the contract for laboratory testing in Auckland.

With Corrections going off the boil, if only temporarily, the damning High Court ruling invalidating the $560 million laboratory testing contract could not have been timed better for National to sustain its strategy of painting Labour as a Government where accountability is absent, standards are lax and mismanagement is endemic.