I now think I understand why the left has done so badly these last few years.

We have fooled ourselves into thinking that the issues that matter most to people are poverty, employment and a strong economy.

It turns out, though, that the crisis of our times is the plight of high-earning upwardly-mobile young professionals who can’t afford to buy their first home in the leafy inner-city Auckland suburbs.

A million bucks won’t buy you very much in some of these suburbs. Imagine not living within walking distance of your favourite café or award-winning restaurant, or having to get onto a motorway to get home from work.

Imagine having to discover the hard way that Auckland is actually quite large, and that there are whole pockets of middle class people trapped in areas with ominous-sounding names, like West Auckland or Manukau.

The poor bastards. We have failed these people.