And the sheer insanity of doing that strategy AFTER seeing it work so catastrophically for Starmer makes me realize that it's just 100 percent ideological for Hipkins.

He'd rather leave his party a ruin and usher in the far-right than concede anything to the left.

This limp noodle of a man sounds more like he wants to be National's junior coalition partner than an opposition leader.

What the fuck are the rest of the Labour MPs doing keeping him around though? Just a loser party honestly...

On the other hand, I'd be inclined to vote for someone who wants to overhaul an obviously corrupt and unfit Representation Commission...

No one votes based on "my MP didn't object to a representation commission decision"...

How would this even work? You're mad at Rongotai's Green MP for failing to object to the name change, so you decide to vote for the candidate from Labour, whose partisans (Neale + Little) promoted this change??

Nope, and as time goes on, it's increasingly clear that Hipkins is just going to duck and cover on this (as with so many other things). The plan is clearly to be a blank void labeled "NOT THE NATIONAL PARTY" and hope that's enough to win.

And it might be! But ask Starmer what happens after that...

Yes sure, I get it, but I assure you that the random kiwi bloke just thought the "black" in "black friday" might refer to black people...

Yeah that was some smarmy bullshit. Our mayor and MPs have real work to do: they should respond to serious proposals, not every crank with unsupported reckons.

The purpose of an independent commission is that they evaluate these things on the merits! Not just accept everything without a counter.

It's all over New Zealand. People here have no idea what Thanksgiving even is. I ran into someone who though "Black Friday" had something to do with slavery... 🤦🏾‍♂️

Yeah it's completely absurd. There was no movement to change the name: it was literally just one guy's reckons. He just happened to be mates with a commissioner, who decided to push the change through based on absolutely nothing.

Unfortunately for us, that dodgy commissioner is now our mayor...

Let's not be deliberately obtuse. If you or I suggest a name change based on reckons, the Representation Commission isn't going to accept it, regardless of whether anyone bothers countering it.

The reason they accepted it is because Andrew Little is on the commission and he's Neale Jones' mate.

Andrew Little was on the body that made the decision that Andrew Little's former chief of staff suggested! That's not independent!

I know well-connected NZ loves to pretend there's no corruption here and good old boys can manage their own conflicts, but the rest of us can just say it's a farce...

No this is actually absurd and should be called out for the farce it is. A single person submitting a name change suggestion with no local support does not warrant a counter-submission. And for the RC to actually change it based on one guy's reckons discredits the whole commission

But remember, we can't admit that there might be corruption in NZ. And of course all the proper technicalities were checked off. So all the law-types will tut-tut you for even suggesting there might be something shady there...

I don't know why they don't open up nationwide shipping like they do in other countries. Would be an easy way to expand their reach without having to build out new locations...

Yeah honestly it's shocking that the parliamentary caucus keeps him around. A real indictment on the whole lot of them that they are just running him back again after the uninspired 2023 campaign, especially when he's even with Luxon on preferred PM...

There are a LOT of good Labour MPs, but the Hipkins/Little/etc bland centrist white man contingent is really awful