Hehir’s three tips for what Labour should do
Liam Hehir writes:
TV3 political journalist Patrick Gower got his hands on a draft of Labour’s “what went wrong in 2014” report last week. This in and of itself seemed a curious happening, because I had it on good authority that all journalism in this country came to an end when John Campbell’s show was cancelled. Nevertheless, the report is a keen and penetrating insight into what Labour thinks about what is arguably its worst ever result.
It seems that one of the party’s major problems is that its internal bureaucracy is just not extensive enough. In addition to its existing deliberative and decision-making bodies, the report recommends that Labour add a campaign committee, a list vetting committee and an executive committee.
On the off chance that more meetings won’t do the trick of restoring Labour to her electoral former glory, I can suggest three other measures that can help get the party back on track for the 2017 general election.
His three measures are simpler to implement. They are:
- Uninstall the Twitter app from all MPs’ smartphones
- Ban all references to ‘neoliberalism’ in all verbal or written communications
- No more personal attacks on the prime minister
Good reasoning on the Twitter issue:
Yes, I know that it is exciting for opposition MPs to have their latest ‘slam’ of the government retweeted 17 times. I’m sure it is also thrilling to be mentioned in political scientist Dr Bryce Edwards’ “top tweets”. In the last election, however, Labour trailed National by more than half a million votes. Social media isn’t going to fix that and, to the extent that it encourages Labour MPs to play to the gallery, it will make closing the gap all the harder.
The more time Labour MPs spend on Twitter, the more confused they become that people did not vote for them, as everyone likes them on Twitter when attacking the Nasty Nats.