THE MAD WORLD OF MARTYN BRADBURY

Martyn Bradbury : 'God told me that you have to vote for Labour.'

Martyn Bradbury's big plan for the 2020 election is the same basic plan he proposed in 2017. Despite the fact it was a complete failure, he thinks we should all give it another go this year. Altenatively, you can repeatedly bang your head against a wall...

IT WAS ALBERT EINSTEIN who defined insanity as ' doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.' If this is indeed the case, then welcome to the mad, mad world of Martyn Bradbury.

The Daily Blog editor, when he's not writing love letters to Jacinda Ardern, has been trying to justify his support for the Labour Party to anyone who will care to listen. He thinks we should all vote for Labour so it can govern alone and therefore will not be able to conveniently blame a coalition partner like NZ First for being the rigidly centrist government it has been for the past three years. Bradbury's big plan is this :

'If progressives don’t see Jacinda embark upon a truly transformative 100 day programme, we will know that Labour is not the political vehicle for the change we require. In that scenario we can acknowledge 

we’ve given Jacinda a chance and if disappointed by their second term 100 day plan, can immediately begin to plot against Labour'

Apparently Bradbury is a bit of a slow learner and he hasn't yet worked out that Labour has been walking lockstep with neoliberalism for the past three decades. Then again, such are Bradbury's remarkable political insights it wasn't so long ago that he was pushing Kim Dotcom as the left's political saviour. Although, to be fair to Bradbury, he wasn't the only one.

Bradbury's dire 'just give Labour a chance' routine is risible. This is  impressionistic politics at his worst, displaying little in the way of real analysis and is exactly the same argument he floated in 2017 before the last election. While Bradbury is now trying to boost his 'progressive' credentials in a desperate attempt to persuade people he's not just a Labour hack, back then he was attacking  'righteous left wing condemnation that NZ Labour aren’t enough like (Jeremy) Corbyn'. He pontificated that it was important to get Labour elected because activists could then pressure the Government to 'implement progressive policy'.

Well, its hardly been a successful strategy, in fact its been a complete failure. But Bradbury wants to try it all over again in 2020. Time is, apparently, not a problem. There is no need for urgency. After all, who cares if we've got less than ten years to get our act together on climate change? Who cares if the level of poverty and inequality in this country has never greater? Who cares if we've got a deepening housing crisis? Let's just waste our time mucking about with a Labour government for the next three years rather than doing the right thing and beginning the task of building a real progressive alternative to the Neoliberal Appreciation Society that is Parliament. The 725,000 or so folk who no longer vote have worked out that Labour isn't the answer, why haven't people like Martyn Bradbury?