Above: John Key charms a visiting member of the British Royal Family with all of his hateful lies
The following strategy paper has been leaked to me. The author’s name was blacked out when I received it. I have no idea who it could be.
TO: DAVID CUNLIFFE, LABOUR PARTY LEADER
FROM: [Redacted]
SUBJECT: A WINNING STRATEGY FOR 2014
Dear David,
As a seasoned political consultant who has spent years working tirelessly for the left, I wanted to give you the benefit of my wisdom and experience.
You’re probably feeling a bit down after seeing the latest round of polls, but there’s really no reason for panic. The next election promises to be a close one, and Labour could well form the next government so long as it adopts the right strategy. It just so happens that I know what that strategy is. If you listen to me and do as I tell you, Labour will win in 2014.
Every negative poll brings fresh questions about Labour and the state the party is in. Are Labour’s policies resonating with voters? Does the party have the right personnel? Every setback has the party faithful questioning the direction being taken by Labour, and wondering if Labour has what it takes to run a modern economy.
David, Labour cannot afford to buy into these kinds of debates. The focus needs to be shifted away from what Labour is doing, and what solutions Labour has to offer. Instead, Labour should keep telling the country just how awful John Key is.
It’s obvious to everyone who follows politics that John Key is National’s most valuable asset. Voters like the man, as evidenced by his absurdly high popularity ratings, although those ratings are almost certainly the result of collusion between corporate polling companies and our compliant MSM. So Labour must focus its attacks on Key. Labour needs to turn National’s greatest strength into its biggest weakness. Labour must go after the PM.
We informed observers of politics have long understood the true nature of John Key, even though the voting public are too dumb to see it for themselves. As an experienced political consultant I can see right through the man, and what I see terrifies me. Although for the last five and a half years National has adopted a mostly moderate centre-right platform, I remain convinced that Key and his cronies are planning a programme of radical right-wing reforms that will result in the rich paying no tax at all and the poor being auctioned off to the Chinese for their body parts; while the rest of us will be subjected to intrusive 24/7 monitoring by spy agencies, and anyone who dares to protest at the actions of the government will be killed outright. This is the brighter future John Key has planned for us if National wins in 2014.
But, of course, the public are too stupid to realise any of this.
Labour needs to get on-message, if we aren’t all to end up being murdered from above by unmanned drones. Forget policy, David. The focus must be on destroying John Key’s reputation utterly. The message to voters needs to be: “You may really like the PM, and think he’s an easygoing affable man who understands you concerns. But we know the truth. We know he’s an uncaring Tory, a rich prick who will sell our nation down the river if it means personal gain for him and his mates, and the sooner you take off those blinkers the sooner you will see it for yourself. You’re so wrong about John Key, terribly terribly wrong. What an idiot you are, falling for all that bullshit by that pathological liar about our brighter future. People like you shouldn’t be allowed to vote, but since you are allowed to vote you should vote for us.”
Do you think you can do this, David?
I’ve noticed that in recent months Labour has been talking a lot about its own policies, and trying to connect with voters by demonstrating an alternative vision for New Zealand. David this is a strategic blunder. The only thing that matters is that John Key is a monster, and the sooner people wake up and realise this the better.
“But wait,” I hear you say, “we have been doing this sort of thing for years, and yet Key remains as popular as ever. We have attacked his wealth and his background, and we have tried to depict him as a tool of corporate interests and a puppet of the US government. We have even mocked the way he talks.”
But just because something doesn’t work the first time round, that doesn’t mean we should just give up. Did George Mallory give up after his first failed attempt at climbing Everest? No, he tried a second time, and then a third. And even though Mallory endured terrible suffering during each expedition, and died horribly and most probably in terrible pain during his third attempt, Everest was eventually conquered, albeit by another person.
John Key may be Labour’s Everest, but he can be beaten. Five and a half years of attacking John Key may have failed miserably, but that’s only because these things take time. To give up now would be to surrender all of Labour’s tremendous gains since going into opposition.
David, if you try something and it just doesn’t work, one option might be to try something different. The better option, though, is to just keep doing the thing that didn’t work, again and again and again, in the hope that maybe you will get a different result the next time round. Einstein may well have said: “the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results,” but what did Einstein know about politics? How many governments did Einstein ever form?
In days of old a good general knew that if you wanted to knock down the wall of an enemy-held castle, you had to bash at it repeatedly with all your siege artillery. In the case of John Key it may just be that the wall of the castle being assaulted happens to be the highest and most formidable in all the land, but nothing worthwhile was ever easy, was it David?
Nobody’s interested in Labour’s alternative vision for New Zealand, because they all love John Key so much. So in the coming election campaign Labour needs to ditch all this talk about policy and vision, and instead target the most popular PM in decades. It may seem on the face of it an incredibly stupid thing to do, but that’s the genius of the plan. National won’t expect it.
David, although you haven’t commissioned me to provide this advice, I know you’re a huge fan of my work. So I’m attaching an invoice for my time spent on preparing this advice, and I’m sure you’ll do the right thing.
Love
[Redacted]
P.S. Matt McCarten will probably try to talk you out of heeding this advice. Don’t listen to him. I know Matt well, and I love him like a brother, but he’s also a reactionary class traitor of the worst kind.
Imperator Fish 