Mike Hosking: It's not Little, it's Labour

My advice to Andrew Little this morning: don't quit.

He's thought about it, talked to his party, and who could blame him. The polls look dreadful. Last night's One News-Colmar Brunton poll was a disaster: 24% is record low territory, and this is a party that has been in opposition now for nine years, and they're staring at 12.

If there is an upside, and there is always an upside, the overall Labour-Green number hasn't changed. While Labour are down three, the Greens are up four, so the overall figure is basically the same.

Internally of course, they won't be thinking that way. These sort of results, if they transpire on election day, have massive ramifications for Cabinet positions and the amount of policy that sees the light of day.

But if your primary objective is to shift the government and install your lot, then these latest numbers are not the end of the world.

Interestingly, in the NBR on Friday, Matthew Hooton writes of a polling trend internally in various parties that on election day has Labour down at 20 and New Zealand First at 20. Sounds absurd, and it isn't backed up by last night's poll. Last night, New Zealand First went exactly nowhere.

But as to what Labour do, it's simple. Double down, they're stuck, there is nothing they can do. They have said all along Little is their man for this election. If he isn't, that means panic, and panic means voters scatter.

They have been here before of course - the famous Mike Moore instillation, a handful of weeks out from the vote of 1990. Here in 2017, can Labour, in all honesty, look at Grant Robertson and Jacinda Ardern and go "there are our saviours, they'll make all the difference?" No, they cannot.

And I think the cold hard reality is that Little is not actually the issue. The entire Labour movement, the PC takeover, the blancmange veneer that is modern Labour is the real issue.

It's not over of course.

And although one poll is not the whole story, I suspect this is the start of a trend, and the trend is the beginning of the end of Labour as an automatic major political force.