Labour’s one-act tragedy descends into circus of hand-wringing and song — with plenty of blood on the floor.
A gaggle of furrowed brows gathered at Parliament on Tuesday for a long, long, long meeting of the vanquished and angry. Now, notes taken in the Labour caucus room have emerged, having been hacked from the email account of some unwitting MP by my source, "Lambshank". The full document, as yet unverified, runs to several thousand pages, but here are the significant moments ...
DAVID CUNLIFFE calls us to attention. New whips are elected. A bit tense. But applause. And there's cake. Promising start!
DC speaks on confidence. The root of the word, he says, is the Latin confidentia, and it is right and proper that these discussions are confidential. The verb confidere is "to trust", and it is wrong and improper that we should be dwelling on secret trusts. Furthermore, he adds, he is no confidence trickster. The leader does not seek to lose a no-confidence vote, says the leader, unless circumstances should see the leader lose a no-confidence vote in which case the leader very clearly was seeking a no-confidence vote for the betterment of the party.
An hour passes. DC's ruminations on Latin are interrupted by several MPs demanding candid discussion of what went wrong. DC obliges. Several factors contributed, he says, before detailing at length and over some many hours the role of hackers, bloggers, inflatable little shits, wine bottles, disloyal scoundrels, Dirty Politics, moas, Moments of Truth, My Kitchen Rules, the weather, Aaron Cruden, everyone who voted Labour, everyone who didn't, and even the leader. All bear equal responsibility, he says. This is Labour. Socialise the fault! We-a culpa! He laughs. There is silence.