Parsons on Labour leadership

John Armstrong at the NZ Herald reports:

The man behind the award-winning 42 Below Vodka advertising campaign says Labour leader Phil Goff should ignore the image-building suggestions of his advisers and be his
natural self.

Darryl Parsons, a guest speaker at Act’s weekend conference and a 13-year veteran of the advertising industry, said he was sure Mr Goff would be good company were he to meet him over a beer or dinner.

“He would do quite well if he was just Phil Goff and backed himself .. It doesn’t seem he’s been given the chance to be his own man. It seems he has a whole lot of people around him who tell him, ‘You have to be like this; you have to dye your hair; you have to ride this motorbike.”‘

Mr Parsons described two future aspirants for the Labour leadership, front benchers David Cunliffe and David Parker, as “boring as mud”, and said party president Andrew Little “had no personality”.

He singled out Labour backbencher David Shearer, who holds Helen Clark’s old seat of Mt Albert, as someone with “the John Key factor”.

“He seems comfortable talking to just about anyone. He seems a decent bloke.”

David Shearer is a decent bloke, and I think has a good future. If Labour loses the election, I think the next leader is David Cunliffe. However Matthew Hooton write in the NBR that David Parker’s stocks are rising. If Cunliffe is leader, then Parker is the likely Finance Spokesperson – but it could be the other way around.

iPredict has stocks on who will be Labour Leader on or before 1 July 2012. Cunliffe is at 42%, Street 1.9% and Mallard 1.0%. That leaves 55% with other – which could represent Goff still being Leader plus Parker plus Shearer’s odds.