NZ General Election 2023 - Early Voting

We are seeing interesting turnout results with only a few days of voting remaining in the New Zealand General Election. The number of people voting is well down on 2020, but ahead of 2017. 

This looks bad for Labour and the Greens. These two rely on a large turnout. But for National, ACT and NZ First, their voters get to the polling booth rain, hail or shine. It's looking like a disaster for Labour, based on the numbers voting.

Read the Stats here: https://vote.nz/2023-general-election/resources/voting-statistics

UK Election Result 2019

A stunning win then for the Conservative party in the UK General Election. Surely this must put to rest any doubt over Brexit. Areas that voted Leave in the EU referendum, have swung to Conservative. The Brexit party played a part, taking votes away from Labour and acting the spoiler, making it possible for Conservative to come through the middle.

Jeremy Corbyn is a good campaigner, but his message was too confused for people to digest. Johnson kept it simple and avoided tricky questions. He was pilloried over "Fridgegate" but it hasn't hurt him (this was where he hid in a chiller to avoid a journalist).

Jo Swinson lost her seat so the Liberal Democrats will need a new leader. They'll be soul searching. The Scottish National Party have made gains but they'll largely be irrelevant as the Conservatives can govern alone. The same for parties in Northern Ireland.

Now the UK has to buckle down and get the job done. Leave the EU and sooner rather than later. Labour will learn, under new leadership and with Brexit embraced they can win support for their campaign to save the NHS. Labour will be back but Johnson now has 5 years to enjoy. He'll be a happy man tonight.

Labour Party Antics

Today could see a new leader for the New Zealand Labour Party just weeks out from a General Election. While that may seem amusing I wouldn't be so quick to write them off just yet. Consider all the surprising election results we've seen the last couple of years. Then we have Greens co-leader Metiria Turei admitting to benefit fraud and actually rising in the polls. Of course the thought has occurred to me that she did no such thing and is simply politicking.

UK General Election 2017

Embarrassment for the British Prime Minister Theresa May as she is returned to power on the back of a confidence and supply agreement with the Democratic Unionist Party.

What went wrong? Two things come to mind, the first being Britain was tired of these elections, first the General Election in 2015, then the Brexit referendum, and now this General Election. Call it voter fatigue.

But then the second factor is that Labour's Jeremy Corbyn is a nice guy. Voters know he's genuine. Meanwhile Theresa May comes across as disingenuous. Younger voters flocked to Corbyn because of this factor supported by policies that favoured their interests. Key here was their pledge to scrap university tuition fees.

It looks as if May is now something of a lame duck, the vultures will be circling.