As someone who is very interested in economics, but with a hefty distaste for tribal politics, elections and political parties are strange times for me.  I have little to no knowledge of politics, but I have some idea of policy trade-offs and political economy.  In this way, I see any comments I make about politics as relatively uninformed.  Keep that in mind.

However, I’ve seen a couple of good pieces today that have made me think about, of all things, the Alliance party.  Given what I remember about the Alliance, I feel like writing something myself.

If you were wondering what the pieces were, there was this from the Dim Post – which in passing gave me this point:

In terms of the party’s direction, if I was them I’d be looking at the seventy or eighty thousand voters they lost to New Zealand First during the last nine months and trying to win them back. That means a more socially conservative Labour Party

And this from Steve Maharey, which states that the Labour party needs to “shift centre”.

The punchline to what I’m going to say is that socially conservative (who are economically left) elements seem to hold sway over the Labour party, something Helen Clark was able to manage (and Jim Anderton managed in the Alliance until their first term in power).  These elements are not represented by most of the caucus, and are not accepted by the vast majority of the public, undermining Labour’s ability to get votes.  As a result, the more liberal and economically central members of the party should split off and form a new party (eg if you can’t manage them, drop them).  Furthermore, the Green party faces the same tensions – with their decision of how to deal with this type of split actually pretty important.

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After everything going haywire for a while it has all gone quiet, and generally we are supposed to remain mute on party preference and party politics until 7pm tonight.  That has lead Imperator Fish to go on a journey of arbitrary things (one, two, three, four).

I’m going to stick to election related points that are irrelevant instead:

1. There was lots of advanced voting this time.  And yet this is the first time I haven’t advanced voted.  I’m pretending this is due to pure chance, rather than it being a statement about how cool my choices are.
2. This is my first time in “Wellington Central”.  I quite like this electorate to be honest 🙂
3. Does anyone else get a bit nervous that the ink from the orange pen will stain another part of the voting form, and your vote will be thrown out?
4. On that note, the orange mark shows up on the back of the paper – I don’t really like that either.
5. Why can people yell out you outside of advance voting booths, but not outside of voting booths on the day?
6. Do I have to wear my “Yes I have voted” sticker all day to stop people yelling at me?

So if you haven’t go vote.  Preferably, wear orange:

This election hurts my head, so I thought I’d note down some of the strange thoughts it is giving me.  View this as no more than the ramblings of someone who hasn’t had enough sleep.

I was talking to my Mum yesterday, and we were both surprised with Laila Harre being involved in the Internet Party – with the “robust debates” between members and a range of incompatible belief structures seemingly undermining the idea that this was an alliance based on ideology.

I say alliance, as both my Mum and me remember her from her days in the Alliance party, and we both have massive respect for her as a politician and for her work outside of parliament.  In this way, her leadership of Internet-Mana funded by a misogynist millionaire (no more offence intended than the offence I’ve taken from some of his tweets about women) and the fact she didn’t stand in a winnable electorate both seem strange.

But then it occurred to me, perhaps she is part of the Chris Trotter school of politics – where the ends justify the means, the ends in this case being the removal of the “right” from power, given that “progressives” are inherently “good” while the “right” is inherently “evil”.

In this case, Internet-Mana actually constituted a threat to the progressive program – as it predominantly ate up the votes of established left-wing parties.  Becoming leader of the party, undermining it, and using its funding to push a narrative that will mainly support the Greens on election day, are all actions consistent with this.

Like I say, this is a conspiracy theory with no substance.  But this has been a very strange election …