"They face a Herculian task"

Andrea Vance, front and centre of a story or two in recent months has written David Shearer's epitaph. And she leaves no doubt as to the difficulty of the job ahead for whoever emerges from last week's carnage; Vance opines:

Well, that's that. So long and thanks for all the fish, David.
Not since National leader Don Brash walked the plank in 2005 has there ever been such defining imagery of a political leader's demise. David Shearer punctuated the end of his 20-month leadership poignantly with two sweating, flaccid snapper.
Tuesday's Question Time - in which he was completely owned by a triumphant John Key -  was the last gasp in a Labour experiment that went horribly wrong.
In many ways, Shearer and Brash shared a common downward trajectory. There was an initial wave of optimism centred around the anti-politician. But it soon gave way to shambling television appearances, a lack of PR nous, poor judgement and memory lapses.
Neither left office of their own volition. Brash was driven out by The Hollow Men book, Shearer by a restless caucus.
What followed was John Key - National's Antaeus, thus far invincible and undefeated in the political arena.
Whoever, the next Labour leader is, they face a Herculean task. 

We concur with Ms Vance. And we concur with her reasoning too; that it's going to be less about those opposite in the House than those behind and to the side of the new leader; read on:

Even buoyed with the direction and fresh vision of a new leader, it will be a long hard slog to get the party and caucus soothed, unified and campaign-ready.
And if they do get there in the next year, they will have to match  - and better - the remarkable energy shown by Key in election campaigns.
There is no stand-out contender that could win an election tomorrow. The best Labour can hope for is a capable leader-deputy combination.
Should David Cunliffe win, he will have to unpick the nasty in-house PR campaign that has lead much of the country to believe he is a villainous pariah. 

We really do wonder about the ability of either Grant Robertson or David Cunliffe to unite the bitterly divided Labour Party. With each having been less than loyal to David Shearer over a period of time, what has gone around is likely to come around, and it's going to be fun.

As Andrea Vance notes, the new Labour leader will "face a Herculean task"; and that's just with the Labour Party!