They’re leading the wrong party

Like many commentators and public intellectuals I’ve been trying hard to make sense of the bizarre period of political upheaval the country has seen over the last few weeks. It certainly is a real puzzle. The Green implosion, the Labour Party leadership drama, the Jacinda phenomenon, Bill English’s suddenly shaky hold on the lead and Peter Dunne calling it quits before his electorate does it for him, cry out for some rational explanation. This week I cracked it. In a eureka moment of total lucidity, I realised the cause of all the recent political shenanigans was that most of our leading politicians are just in the wrong party.

In other words, they sit astride the wrong horse.

It’s hard to know how this has happened.

We hear the traditional political battlelines have shifted over the years so that Left and Right are no longer relevant and loyalties are fluid.

We are told modern politics is about pragmatic, technical solutions based on data and hard facts rather than perceived ideological truths.

It may also be a case of the parties outgrowing their leaders rather than the other way round.

Jim Anderton, when he was accused of disloyalty for leaving the Labour Party over the Douglas reforms to start New Labour, used to say he didn’t leave the Labour Party, it left him.

Anyway my prognosis is the party leaders are or have been bad fits for their parties as they enter the 2017 election.

Take, for example, the former Green co-leader Metiria Turei who I think would have been a happier combination with Hone Harawira or the Maori Party.

I can even see her on the hard left of the Labour Party but not in the Green Party which is supposed to be predominantly about, er, Green things.

Green Party leader James Shaw, who I admit is making a good fist of things post the Turei resignation, somehow seems a better fit for the National party, as a sort of blue-greenie with a social conscience.

I base this mainly on how he looks and speaks. It’s easy to see him as an Environment Minister in a National Government.

Peter Dunne has clearly always been in the wrong party.

He was never a leader and to expect success in his one-man vehicle of United Future was always pushing it.

He should have simply left Labour and joined the National Party when he got fed up. He obviously feels very much at home with National and a direct switch would have been the honest way to do it.

We come then to Bill English. Sometimes I wonder why English is in a political party at all.

He strikes me as more a topnotch, technocrat-mandarin type who should not be bothered with all the humdrum people stuff that politicians have to cope with.

If he is as smart as everyone says, he should have been put in charge of a super-Government department and bugger the politics.

I also wonder whether English, who talks about vulnerable and complex families in a way National Party politicians never have, would find the Labour Party a better fit for his talents and sensitivities.

National and Labour policies have grown closer over the last decade and English, despite his farming background, could probably sell Labour policies just as well as National’s.

Jacinda Ardern, who is just a bit too cool for Labour, should ideally be leading the Green Party.

She’s taken most of their policies anyway and her relentless positivity, and general niceness make her a worthy successor to Jeanette Fitzsimons rather than Helen Clark.

As leader of the Greens she would have a bit more leeway to be herself and be that much more vote worthy for it.

Despite New Zealand First being a one-man cult, Winston Peters is also really in the wrong party.

He should long ago have ditched New Zealand First and set up another party called Grey First or something like it.

That would have allowed him to stick to his knitting which is sucking up to the over 65s.

Like English, perhaps he shouldn’t be in politics at all.

He is more of a lone wolf lobbyist and stirrer than someone who runs a party with sufficient talent and depth to administer a country.

Perhaps the only political leader who looks comfortable with his party is Act leader David Seymour.

He looks perfectly happy in a party going absolutely nowhere.

It might be too late for the leaders mentioned to change horses before the election on September 23.

But given what’s happened over the last few weeks, we shouldn’t rule out a bit of a switch around.