The Greens...

Jeanette Fitzsimmons standing down, to be replaced by either Sue Bradford or Metira Turei (sp?) as the female co-leader.
Seriously drops their appeal to me - takes them more towards their on-the-extreme-leftist-side and away from their genuine environmental/green side.

And I was so heartened by Kennedy Graham being elected in there...

not against a extreme left leaning type... but don't think much of the candidates given

the lose of Fitzeimmons from the co-leadership will seriously impact on the Greens popularity

bloody shame our smaller parties are so hamstrung by them they attract to want to be MPs and leaders - there seems to be so many drop kicks and people with little to no public appeal

so many seem so devoid of personality and charisma

We should totally start a political party called The Daktaris...

There's at least 7 Afrobeat fans in this country that would vote for us?

First of all - the Greens have never been a left wing party in the traditional sense. They are not a broad-based movement based on and from working class people.

The Greens are more a middle class party of the age of identity politics. In other words, people today seem more to identify with a racial or social group than they do with a broad economic class. hence, for some people being a biggie is more important than being a Maori, or being a Maori is more important than being a member of the working class. Hence, gender (two leaders for gender balance), race, and sexuality all play a big part in Green politics alongside those of the environmental movement who founded first the Values party then the Greens.

Of course, identity politics now dominates new Zealand politics. Anyone looking at the media spin around the National government and it's cheerleaders in the editorial team at the herald can see this. The clear message is all about identity. The wicked witch is dead, that the rule of academics, lesbians, gays and P.C. brigade is dead and white, aspitational middle class (who in in struggle street doesn't want a pink McMansion in Omaha?) heterosexual men are back in charge.

So the idea that the Greens will "go to the left" is a complete nonsense. unlike Labour they don't have a traditional class based left wing in their party to challenge the practitioners of identity politics. The Greens have no empathy for and are largely distainful of the working class. Sometimes (perhaps even more often than not) their policies align with the left, but it isn't left wing philosophy that drives them.

Which also says to me that if it was properly organised, under MMP we could probably get a biggie party candidate elected to Parliament...

seven you say

dear god the number has doubled in the past decade

election promise number one - less prisons more lions

our justice policy isn't blind, its cross eyed

And this is different to socialism how? You know absolutely nothing about left wing politics; it has always been a core tenet that identifying the bourgeois/proleteriat/peasantry is an essential step.

Not only that, but I could probably show you Bolshevik posters where particular ethnic or economic groups are blatantly identified as the "enemy." Before you whine about rightism making politics about hate, look at posters against Jewry etc in the Soviet Union.