Raucous Caucus
Just a day after Hodgson admitted something we all know, that Labour’s pledge card was electioneering (and therefore, by extension, an illegal misappropriation), the New Zealand Herald reveals that Phil Goff has broken ranks and has been privately negotiating with the Auditor-General over his electorate spending. This goes directly against orders by Heather Simpson to maintain a united front and tough it out.
Both admissions are signals that Labour’s strategy, the handling of which is already the subject of division within the party, is fraying and indicates heated discussions in caucus tomorrow are likely.
…
Mr Goff confirmed yesterday he had written to Mr Brady to contest the findings in relation to his own electorate spending and indicated he had been successful.
I look forward to a raucous caucus tomorrow and hope that Goff’s success may encourage others to break ranks as well, rather than go down with the ship. The Labour caucus has been ruled with an iron fist for so long now, it should be very entertaining to see what it looks like when the Prime Minister loses control.
October 2nd, 2006 at 10:20 pm
Given that the saints of the Labour Right (Mike Moore, Margaret Pope) are briefing against Helen; and the Lax and H1+H2 gossip is comming out - again of the labour right - sure sounds like payback time to me.
and now Phil has betrayed a direct order, it’s not going to be too long.
So, don’t you think Phil would make an *excellent* foreign affiars minister under John Key?
October 2nd, 2006 at 10:28 pm
The longer that Labour spend behind in the polls the more oif this sort of bickering we can expect to see. In 6 months time when they are still consistently behind I imagine the fallouts will really get going and NZ First and United may start trying to distance themselves from Labour a little bit.
October 3rd, 2006 at 7:23 am
yeah right: where
…distance themselves from Labour a little bit
can mean nothing less than remove confidence and supply!