John Pagani
Labour members are certainly enjoying the openness of the leadership election.
Stephen Franks doubts its value:
There is a lot of truth in this criticism. After being initially joyful about the open contest, I'm having my doubts. It's true that a genuinely open mutual scrutiny, as democratic elections require, is not really possible because of the potential for lasting damage.Internal candidate debating competitions are deeply flawed exercises in democracy. They cannot perform the main function of an election campaign. They cannot explore and expose the critical weaknesses of the candidates. If they did tease them out they would wound the party privately and publicly. Little damage is more long-lasting than the damage from publicised frank assessments of weakness by close colleagues. So intraparty primaries become competitions in public self praise, with little risk of contradiction. Sure there may be cunning allusion, comparison by emphasis. But formally the candidates can only highlight their own attributes, and stay away from the dangerous territory of exploring their competitors' weaknesses.
I noticed, for example, when I voiced criticism of David Cunliffe's initiative on buying back assets, I received a bit of feedback accusing me of "bagging" the candidate (which I was careful not to do), and less debating the substance of the idea.
Now, I'm paid by several media to express commentary views so I'm inevitably going to voice criticism from time to time, and I'm too fussed about criticism that fails to distinguish between attacks v scepticism about a centrepiece policy. But if there is sensitivity when I do it, how explosive is criticism by the contenders?
I believe that the actual voters - the 34 MPs - are having plenty of discussion about the relative merits of the candidates.
