The Labour Party is in a dire situation. Dropping to 24% in the latest Colmar Brunton poll was bad, but Andrew Little admitting he had offered to step down, and no one else being prepared to step up, could be the death knell of their chances this election, and possible the death knell of the party.

This situation was predictable a long time ago. Last December I posted Is Labour a 19% party?

Colmar Brunton’s recent poll had Labour on 28%, and the just released Roy Morgan poll has them on 23%. One is bad, the other is an awful result.

But is it a surprise?

Andrew Little has failed to impress – this interview with RNZ yesterday is unfortunately typical, fumbles and bumbles interspersed with a few tired slogans.

That hasn’t changed.

‘True Labour’ seems to be a rapidly narrowing (but poorly defined) brand. The only thing that seems to be consistent is spraying those who walk away from the party with bitterness.

Shane Jones. Phil Goff. Clayton Cosgrove. David Cunliffe. Gone or going. There are calls for David Shearer to go as well as he is not seem as ‘true Labour’ by some on the left.

Josie Pagani and Phil Quin are often lambasted for not being ‘Labour’ enough, as are many people who get abused on Twitter, Facebook and The Standard.

 Is Labour heading for 20%? Little and the Labourites who remain seem happy burn off support as they turn the party to ashes.

It looks increasingly like New Zealand will remain dominated by a single party, with a few smaller ones yapping from the sidelines.

What will it take for the penny to drop within Labour? 19%?

The penny dropped for Little after last week’s 24% poll, with 19% or less distinctly possible now.

The Standard (where I’m not allowed to comment again) The Standard had largely given up on Labour and has driven away many people who could have supported Labour for years.

In reaction to yesterday’s poll result there was some lame protestation at The Standard, until ‘Sanctuary’ laid  things out things out brutally…

It isn’t just this poll. Labour are drifting to utter catastrophe. It is all well and good to talk about the undecided vote, but given the lack of inspiration and passion so far in this election campaign from Labour they’ll probably just not vote at all. I reckon we are heading towards a 65% turn out max.

What is it about neoliberalism that turns Labour PLPs into technocratic, out-of-touch, smug and entitled collections of careerists? They are too fucking arrogant to see what should be obvious – they are in deep trouble and need to PANIC, completely rethink their whole fundamental approach to politics and just… just fucking grow some balls and show us they believe in something other than muggins turn.

Their policy so far has been too technocratic and timid, full of thickets of ifs and buts and maybes. They’re thinking seems stuck in 1990s, wedded to neoliberal economic orthodoxy and, frankly, their main tactic at the moment appears to be relying on National losing.

The Labour caucus is – yet again – completely missing in action, 54 days out from the election. The current crop of Labour politicians are completely useless at politics.

The Greens have outflanked them on the left, exploiting the Corbyn-Sanders effect and showing they might actually understand ordinary folks problems.

NZ First is killing them in the provinces. There vote is is 3-4% higher than this poll, mark my words.

LABOUR FUCKING NEEDS TO WAKE UP AND SMELL THE COFFEE!!!!!

And:

Playing musical cheers with the leadership is no good. The next losers up will be Gracinda, and they are lackadasical middle class careerists. All they represent is the inept PLP and their own technocratic ambitions. Little has got a useless caucus that is lazy and politically clueless. Labour has to re-think everything from the ground up, including how and who they select to be MPs, what they stand for and what the party exists to do.

At the moment, they stand for nothing and the PLP is full of under performing chumps like Ruth Dyson (remember her?) Jenny Salesa (who? never heard from her once, unforgivable when there are only 31 MPs) Megan Woods (Ever heard from her either? No? Me neither. Pathetically ineffectual on Canterbury issues and climate change), David Parker (last spotted in 2015 and heading for the exit), Trevor fucking Mallard (a burnt out political joke, it is a disgrace he occupies a valuable seat), Poto Williams (useless at scoring hits on the government, but that is OK because as far as i can tell, she was mainly selected to be spokesperson for political correctness and guardian of identity politics), Clare “vanishing majority” Curren, David Clarke, the invisible man in a caucus of hopeless invisible MPs, etc etc.

Labour has a caucus where six of their MPs are from Maori seats, and apart from Kelvin Davis none of them appear to do anything to justify their existence to the wider electorate. Given that these MPs represent fully 20% of the PLP, this is unacceptable. They need to pull their weight a lot more.

Labour only has 31 MPs. Only a handful seem to do anything, but with 31 MPs they ALL need to be working bloody hard. the rest are taking the piss out of their supporters and one can justly suspect they are lazy mofos in the best paying job they are ever likely to hold.

…and there was little argument to this from the stragglers left at The Standard.

Since Helen Clark and Michael Cullen left parliament and the party in 2009 went through three leaders before Andrew Little took over, each of them failing to inspire. Little has been disappointing to say the least.

But as Sanctuary says, Labour’s problems go much deeper than a string of hapless leaders.

Most Labour MPs have not been performing anywhere near a credible level. Most of them are unheard of most of the time.

The Labour Party has also been hopeless. Their lack of ability to fund raise has been both a symptom and a cause of their problems.

The McCarten intern fiasco showed either a party out of control or a party having no clue – and the media went very easy on them, choosing to obsess over the death of a National backbencher’s career and largely ignoring the death of what was once the main opposition party.

I’ve kept a close watch on The Standard for many years. It is the main representative of the Labour Party in the blogosphere. Actually that’s not correct.

The Standard was the main online voice of Labour, but they have abused and driven away a lot of support over the years. They have become as lame and hapless as the Labour Party, to the extent that they have become dominated by a Weka, a Green Party supporter intent on deterring or shutting down anything deemed to be not left wing enough.

Even the bloody Standard gave up championing Labour years ago. Most of their posts are anti-National and anti-Government, only a small proportion are pro-Labour and there are probably as many pro-Green now.  But this is just a symptom of a bigger, wider problem.

I keep getting banned at The Standard, and I have voted Labour more than any other party, up until 2008.

My local MP David Clark and the other Dunedin MP Clare Curran both block me on Twitter. @NZLabour also blocks me on Twitter.

The Labour Party has been withering away over the last nine years. Actually, since Labour won their second term in 2002 they have lost vote share every election. That’s fifteen years.

Andrew Little just happens to be it’s leader during what could well be it’s death rattle. Unless a miracle occurs Labour looks lost already, not just in this year’s election but as a political force. They have become a political farce.

All the Colmar Brunton poll has done is prompt Little to publicly admit defeat, but he, Labour MPs and the party have been in a slow death spiral for yonks.

The way things are looking Labour may end up doing well if they get 19% in September.