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The Soap Box: Little gains for Labour leader

Author
Barry Soper,
Publish Date
Wed, 13 May 2015, 3:09PM
Photo: NZME.
Photo: NZME.

The Soap Box: Little gains for Labour leader

Author
Barry Soper,
Publish Date
Wed, 13 May 2015, 3:09PM

Teflon John Key admitted that he didn't know Andrew Little very well when he became Labour leader six months ago, and that's understandable.

Little only came into Parliament three years earlier having been resoundingly beaten by the Tories in his hometown of New Plymouth. He was thrashed even worse at the election last year, and for a time it looked as though he may not even get back into Parliament because he was the last cab off Labour's rank.

Now of course, he's gone from the bottom to the top grid spot thanks to his buddies in the trade union movement.

But Teflon John reckons he's now got his measure, repeatedly labelling him as 'Angry Andrew' ever since Little told him to cut the crap when he was questioning him in Parliament's bear pit.

It's a label that Little's embraced. He is angry, he says, at National's lack of economic progress since coming into office. He expressed that anger to an audience of business suits in the capital, a similar crowd that has sat listening adoringly to Key in the past, and that's clearly becoming Little's target market.

He threw a party at his parliamentary office last week and the suits who've more closely identified with National were there in droves. So successful was the knees up, Little's repeating the exercise in Auckland and Christchurch and is asking those who turned up last week to put their mates' names forward for the future bashes.

This former trade union leader's trying to recapture the centre ground, which is of course essential if Labour's going to give the Nats a run for their money - and compared to Labour at the last election, they had plenty of it.

Judging by those at his Wellington outing yesterday, Little hit the mark. They liked what they heard. The only criticism they had of the Labour leader was that he needs to lighten up, show that he's got a sense of humour - which his opponent has in bucket loads.

But Little remains unconvinced that he has to become anything like the extraordinarily popular Prime Minister, describing him as a hair pulling, jokey blokey sort of a guy who doesn't take the job seriously.

If the opinion polls are anything to go by, though, the public certainly takes him seriously and Little would do well to take a leaf out of Key's joke book.

 

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