Soper on the Man-Ban

When someone like Barry Soper turns feral on the Labour Party, you know that the world is changing. But that's exactly what he has done in his regular semi-satirical piece on Newstalk ZB, and released on the Newstalk website; Soper opines:

The dismal opinion poll ratings for Labour a few weeks back charged the Tory's political arsenal. Every time the hapless, Dithering David Shearer stood up in Parliament's bear pit to ask State Homie John Key whether he stood by all his statements, the volley began.
Of course he stood by the statements he'd been making to his fellow conspirators that The Ditherer's days were numbered.
It was 'head on the plate stuff', but this week it'll be carcass on the spit with Labour's so called man-ban, where they'll consider standing only women in some electorates to get a gender balance. Shearer was quick to distance himself from the feral feminists but he does lead a Party where the idea's been entertained.
Currently they've got 14 women and 20 men MPs, even if the media had to point out the correct figures to them. So why do they want more women? Well there could be two reasons for that, to improve on the talent, or lack of it, that they've already got or to Morris dance with The Kermits who're committed to the gender balance.
Their highest ranking woman Jacinda Adern is more teeth than gnarl, no match for her opposite number, the Tory's Paula Benefit.
Nanaia Mahuta's also up there because, well she's Waikato Royalty. Louisa Wall's done what she came to the bear pit to do, allow gays to marry, and has never been heard of since. Moana Mackey took over from her mum and has been keeping the seat warm ever since.
There's the caustic Clare Curran, who came to Parliament as a former PR spin doctor but is little more than a hospital orderly, finding it difficult to contain a press release to less than one page, and then it's a worst seller.
And of course they have Megan Woods, anointed to take over from the mogadon man Saint Jim Anderton and has been asleep ever since.

Now we don't necessarily endorse all the comments that Soper has made here, but as we said at the beginning of the post, his "editorial" piece normally has strong piss-take overtones to it. Underlying his rather colourful descriptions of some of Labour's female MP's is a very strong message that Labour has stuffed this up completely, as they did with the SkyCity corporate box affair.

Soper's closing paragraphs however contain a very serious warning to Labour over its political management:

In fairness there are some Labour men who do little more than keep their seats warm as well, and for that matter they can be found across the political spectrum.
But Labour brought this on themselves.
If they want to be taken seriously, they should be thinking about a winning team rather than the makeup!

Barry Soper is absolutely right; Labour has no-one to blame but itself for this unholy mess. In its desire to be all things to all people, it has reverted to the political correctness that brought the party so much negativity during the Clark Government's second and third terms and saw it voted out in 2008. 

Unless Labour starts to focus on the issues that matter to the people likely to vote for it instead of pushing the barrows of a few Labour Party members and party Council activists, the wilderness beckons.