Red Alert on Moore’s appointment

While Phil Goff put out a press release welcoming the appointment, I’ve been waiting for one of the 40 or so Labour MPs who blog at Red Alert, to blog about Moore’s appointment and how pleased they are.

They managed to find newsworthy a blog post by Jordan Carter (the one I highlighted), the Mackenzie farming proposals, The Republican win in Massachusetts, the tax working group and some tale about how an MPs niece thinks the penguin in Madagascar reminds her of John Key.

But not a word of congratulations to Mike Moore. Never mind he joined the Labour movement in 1968, was elected to Parliament as a Labour MP in 1972 and served for 24 years, led them twice in a general election, and helped them avoid a crushing defeat in 1996 (before the rapprochement with Clark, Labour were polling at 14%).

He’s just been appointed to New Zealand’s most important diplomatic post, and none of his former colleagues at Red Alert can bring themselves to blog on it.

UPDATE: Audrey Young covers an interesting point:

Half a lifetime ago, in 1972, Mike Moore was the new young thing in politics, having won the marginal seat of Eden for Labour at the age of 23 – despite a vigorous campaign against him by opponents including the bearded 18-year-old Young National activist Murray McCully.

There were no hard feelings then – McCully ended up at Moore’s all-night celebrations.

Appointing the guy who beat you in your first election!

UPDATE 2: Denis Welch reminds us:

Ironically, when I interviewed him for the Clark book in November 2008, he was somewhat in the wilderness, having been passed over for appointments by the Clark government (he wasn’t even invited to the party’s 90th anniversary bash, which, rightly, rankled).

I’d forgotten they didn’t even invite him to the 90th birthday party. How petty.