The Press on Labour

Today’s Press editorial is unimpressed with Labour

Labour’s efforts to demonise National leader John Key are a measure of its own desperation and panic

These shrill attacks have thus far failed to dent Key’s credibility and each time the National leader bats away an allegation it is the Government which looks ridiculous and rattled.

The political acumen Labour exhibited on taking office eight years ago has been replaced by the tired misjudgments of a third-term administration, including its Key-bashing.

Bereft of fresh faces and ideas to address the real issues of concern to New Zealanders, Labour has instead rounded on Key personally. There is a strong sense of political reversal in this, as an attack strategy is normally the weapon of an Opposition, not a Government. Most members of the public will see through and disdain this negative brand of politics. They will regard it as an admission by Labour that it can not handle Key and is desperate to destroy him by any means before the next election campaign. Far from doing this, all the attacks have achieved is to give Key even more publicity and possibly public sympathy.

Key does have question marks over his leadership strength. He is still politically inexperienced, as shown by his occasional gaffes and hints of flip-flops, and he has yet to show that he has the policy substance to go with his undoubted personal style. Ministers can legitimately scrutinise Key on these grounds, but its smear campaign belongs in the rubbish bin, not in the political arena.

Exactly.  The attacks on him over the lack of clarity on the Complementary Medicines Bill were valid and what one expects.  Likewise contrasting his views on Iraq five years ago and today is valid (if overdone and not the killer blow Labour thinks it is).  But trying to smear him not on the basis of what he has done, but what some people he knows did four years before he went into business with them is not valid.  Likewise in the House suggesting he is of bad or malign character because he helped the SFO with an inquiry into a business he once worked at, is also not valid.

But the smears will not stop.  Helen Clark, who is normally the first to whine loudly whenever anything negative is said about her, says on NZPA this morning that “personal scrutiny is part of politics and National’s leader John Key should stop “bleating” about Labour’s attacks on him”.

Now one could say the PM is being a hypocrite, but really her position is consistent and clear.  Do as she says, not as she does.