LABOUR'S NEW FRIEND

The appeal of Kim Dotcom and the Internet Party has highlighted Labour's inability to define a  new economic and political project that isn't beholden to the demands of 'the market'.

It was not surprising, but still disillusioning,  to see how many 'progressive' people were quick to flock to the shiny new politics of Kim Dotcom and the Internet Party.

The fact that Dotcom has shown zero interest in local struggles  has been of no consequence to his new, but probably fairweather,  fans. The fact that the Internet Party is not a political creation  of organic  working class struggles but rather the politician invention of a wealthy businessman also seems to be of little concern.

It seems that it is simply  enough that Mr Dotcom is  'against John Key.' It has been very  much a case  of 'any enemy of John Key is a friend of mine'.

Indeed on  the Labour friendly The Daily Blog, whose editor has been  exposed as angling for a well-paid job with Dotcom,  there  have been readers and columnists  speculating on all the possible  scenarios  in which the intervention of the Internet Party would lead to the election of a Labour-led government.

It's a fair bet that none of them have any idea what Dotcom's views are on anything other than the future of the internet.

What this less than attractive affair has highlighted is that Labour's inability to define a new and alternative economic and social project means that its supporters are going to be  attracted to dubious 'oppositional' reactions to the National-led government.

While Labour clearly has no appetite for resurrecting the old welfare-focused state interventionism policies it has little else to offer other than the empty assertion that it can 'manage' the market economy better than National.

For people not part of Auckland's self-absorbed  'Labour mileau', all this has done is increase people's alienation from the political system - a system that  presents, as a 'political alternative',  the self-interested  politics of a mega millionaire.

And, a short note. The fact that some  members of the Mana Party have been  telling people to 'Mana up' and get rid of John Key suggests it is a fait accompli that Mana will do a deal with the Labour Party. The Mana leadership  will have to explain to its followers  how supporting  the neoliberal lite policies of the  Labour Party is in any way 'progressive'.