For the decision by a quartet of Labour MPs to accept the invitation from SkyCity to enjoy their generous hospitality and a sweet view of the first France test was staggering in its myopia.
Hang on a minute, a few have objected, it's not that big a deal, in the scheme of things. The criticisms of the Government's agreement to deliver a raft of legislative concessions in exchange for building a conference centre should not be washed away by a night out in a corporate box. As for the substance, true enough. But it's little wonder that when Judith Collins spotted the Labour MPs in that corporate box, her eyes lit up brighter than the Eden Park floodlights. As any halfwit could tell you, it looks bloody terrible.
David Shearer's admission in March that he had overlooked and failed to declare several thousand dollars in a New York bank account was a nightmare for Labour, skewering two of the attacks levelled at the prime minister: that his wealth distances him from normal people, and those forgetfulness issues.
In that case, however, it was almost certainly a mistake of omission. The Labour leader had his own memory lapse, and admitted it. In the latest example of an optics facepalm, however, it was utterly, utterly avoidable. Unfathomably stupid. Labour can expect to be reminded of that Saturday night every time they mention the pokies-for-convention-centre deal.
On its own, the SkyCity box thing does not a Labour party crisis make. But it fits a pattern. The commanding effort by David Shearer at the party conference late last year increasingly looks like an anomaly. In his contribution to the urgent parliamentary debate on the Peter Dunne resignation the other day - a debate Shearer personally demanded - the Labour leader appeared to be reading from a script that had been torn up and sellotaped together at random.
It was a small example of a wider problem. While a handful of Labour front-benchers have creditably countered the ministers they shadow, rarely has it been knitted into a wider, cohesive argument. The Labour argument has looked as unswerving as the windsock at Wellington airport.
When it comes to cohesive arguments, the Greens have comfortably outshone Labour. On TV3's The Nation last weekend, Russel Norman said that voters "don't want us to carp on all the time, but they do want us to speak strongly where it's important". He might easily have been critiquing the Labour party. The approach is all tactics, and no strategy.
It's true that Labour could end up leading a government if it continues in the current vein, but it would be one of hell of a shaky coalition, with the party outnumbered in Parliament by National by some distance.
They need a shake. An adrenaline shot. A risk, even. It's now seven months since David Cunliffe was sent to the naughty step - expelled from the front bench for failing to squash talk of an insurrection.
It was only a matter of time before the Other David was mentioned in dispatches again. But we suspect that Cunliffe wouldn't rate a mention if Labour was performing half-decently.
The next round of polls will be interesting, as will the Ikaroa-Rawhiti by-election next weekend. If Labour's 6000-plus majority in that seat is dented, or if by some chance Labour was to lose the seat, the whispering would start all over again And those who are tearing up David Shearer's speeches the sellotaping them back together (but not necessarily in the same order!) will face a choice between the man who got them their jobs, and the man that the party rank-and-file wants, but whom caucus loathes.
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