By: Felix Marwick | Thursday, August 16, 2012 6:05 AM

The ability of the Labour Party to continually shoot itself in the foot appears to be habit forming.

Labour's received a fair amount of criticism from friends, foes, and commentators in recent weeks and it has to be said it's well deserved.

As an opposition party they've been under-performing, and it's not just been in this term, it applies to the last electoral cycle as well.

Every time they appear to make some traction there's a self inflicted injury/scandal that's immediately undone all the good work that may have been achieved.

The speculation over David Cunliffe's popularity, or lack thereof, with his caucus colleagues is the latest example.

Why on earth anyone within the caucus thought a bit of public backstabbing was a good idea beggars belief.

There are 59 other MPs on the other side of the house to put the boot into, 61 if you count Banks and Dunne, why anyone would choose to use the energy to snark a colleague shows just how divorced from reality some elements of the Labour caucus have become.

If Labour MPs are wondering why their polling hasn't bounced back the way they might have liked well perhaps it's got something to do with the fact, if you can't manage your own affairs why would the public expect you to be able to run the country?

A part of the problem, and this is a personal observation, is that it seems very little of substance has changed about Labour's parliamentary wing since the accession of David Shearer to the leadership.

A lot of the same advisors are there, a lot of the same MPs hold senior positions in and around the front bench.

And it appears that ideas and strategies that were pushed under Phil Goff are still the norm.

Goff was accused of dog whistling on race when he made a speech on race relations and Maori in 2009. Shearer's got similar flack for critical comments he made about sickness beneficiaries earlier this month.

Some might observe that the faces are different but the strategies remain the same.

Which begs the question, why would you stick with a strategy that delivered a 27 percent result at the last general election.