The one after that, and the one after that.

The title of this is a quote from this story that appeared on the news in 2001, when National were looking, well, pathetic.

“Not just the next election, but the election after that, and the one after that, and the one after that,” says delegate Louisa Wall.

What really bothered me when this was reported on the news was this: the reporter repeated this assertion.

Well, they romped through the first election in that list of 4. Fair enough.

I believe they in part came into this election with the same mindset – we’ll win this one and the next two.

Trouble was, they got caught. Badly. Very, very badly.

A one-term 65 year old with no political experience was canning them.

Ok, canning is a little extreme. But when you have what, 40 odd? years experience in your top 2 alone, Dr Brash being anywhere near comes as a rude shock.

And that’s where things started to unravel.

They had to pull the emergency policy. You know the one, Interest Free Student Loans.

(Don’t get me wrong, our household benefits from this. Thanks to Brash, we now have a permanent, no interest loan.)

Then they found themselves in trouble over spending.

Which brings me back to the above quote.

1. Labour thought they’d be fine for 2 more elections yet. They still think this. If they didn’t, they’d now be working on minimising their stay in opposition, not maximising their time in government.

2. Labour expected the media to keep parroting their lines for them. Well, the media have now woken up. The Herald in particular is, in my observation, now engaged in an active campaign to run Labour out of town.

Labour don’t like this. The’ve been a media darling for so long, and they expected to keep on for a while yet. Now, like a spoilt child receiving their first real spanking they are screaming. It ain’t pretty.

And it’s not over yet.