Watkins on Shearer

Tracy Watkins reflects on the potential implications of yesterday's Fairfax-Ipsos poll for David Shearer. Under the headline Shearer can't get any political traction Watkins opines:

The only relief for Labour leader David Shearer in today's Fairfax Media-Ipsos poll is that things haven't got worse. But that is small solace when the terrible 20s are just a couple of percentage points around the corner.
It is not entirely fair to assess the results solely on Labour's performance, of course.
As has so often happened over the last five years, the polling period was dominated by crisis headlines - this time over the Fonterra milk contamination scare. That meant two things: Opposition parties were starved of oxygen, and voters were probably more focused on the Government's performance during the crisis.
But even soMr Shearer has fired some big policy shots to grab attention, including a blatantly populist pitch to first-home buyers with a plan to ban foreign speculators from the housing market, and build tens of thousands of cheap new homes.
He has moved to arrest the inertia in his back office by bringing back former chief press secretary, Fran Mold, and installing her as his chief of staff.
And he has been quick to latch on to the right side of issues like the row over snapper bag limits.
But his leadership still seems to be at half throttle. 

Mr Shearer's leadership may indeed have been at "half throttle" until Question Time on Tuesday. During Q3, he went to full throttle, and later when he did the dead fish stunt he was in overdrive. The only trouble is that he was in reverse gear!

And Ms Watkins notes that any gains he has made this year have evapourated; read on:

Even voters who flirted briefly with him at the start of the year have either switched off, or been turned off, by hapless episodes like the man ban, or the debacle yesterday over his request for a not-so-secret meeting with Prime Minister John Key to find a way through the impasse over legislation extending the powers of the Government Communications Security Bureau.
The intention behind him seeking the meeting was good - the execution was not. And it was just another reminder to Labour that their leader will have to think a lot faster on his feet on the campaign trail if he wants to get one up on Mr Key. 

David Shearer's performance on Tuesday was cringeworthy. He was absent for Question Time yesterday, only returning to the House in time to lead Labour's opposition to the GCSB Bill, but even then his speech was laboured (pardon the political pun) and lacking the kind of authority one would expect from a leader.

Can Mr Shearer improve his communication enough to go head-to-head with John Key in an election debate? Or will Labour even take that risk? Spring is just a matter of days away. 


UPDATE:  Just us we posted this, we saw this tweet:

Has spring sprung?