A GREAT VICTORY

THE BIG 'IDEA' OF MOST OF the New Zealand left is to fight neoliberalism by voting into power a Labour Party that is also committed to...neoliberalism. You might remember this great 'idea' from the last election. And the election before that.

This weak and uninspiring alternative to National is so popular with the people that nearly a million of us don't bother to vote anymore.

So while Labour leader Andrew Little snuggles up to the business suits and we sleepwalk toward another election in 2017, we have to look for political inspiration elsewhere.

Today it is in Greece.

The Greek people overwhelmingly rejected the Troika's kind offer to impose more austerity and misery on them. To win the referendum was the immediate task of Syriza and that has been achieved, emphatically.

This was despite the Troika warning that a plague of locusts would ravage Greece if people didn't see things the right way. And the corporate media failed to convince the Greek people that the referendum was 'too close to call' and maybe they should just stick with the status quo....

It was an inspiring and important victory for Syriza, the people of Greece and of Europe. It was a huge defeat for the Troika and the European ruling class. The anti-austerity and progressive alternatives in Spain, Portugal, Italy and elsewhere can only encouraged by this referendum result.

Perhaps it might  even inspire the New Zealand left to look beyond the  politically bankrupt Labour Party...