1989: Jim Anderton Splits
September 7, 2019
By AHNZ
Jim Anderton (79) died in 2018. Man, did age catch up with him in the end, as if having a hand in the political ring has been the drug that kept him vital. Not winning the 2010 Christchurch Mayoralty, by that view, has been the death of the ageing drummer boy.
He really did represent the remains of a political equation that belonged to the early C20th; A Grey, a Balance, a Savage, a Nash. Somehow there has been an electorate for those old ‘applied Christianity’ politics-of-envy types and Anderton’s talent found it and capitalised upon it long beyond the natural expiry date.
To do that, Anderton famously split from Labour in May 1989. On May 1st (‘May Day’, of course..) he announced his new party: NewLabour.
“I did not leave the Labour Party; the Labour Party left me.”- Anderton
He was the Captain America of New Zealand politics, frozen out of the ice with 1940s ideas and skills and put to work in the contemporary era. Or, in less friendly terms, he was called neanderthal among homo sapiens; ‘Jim neAnderthal.’
I don’t think he gave a damn about old buildings (eg Christchurch Cathedral) or his daughter (suicide) or anything, it was just business. Another political junkie, the last of the old strain. Which of these Dire Straights lyrics don’t say it best?
“I’m just an aging drummer boy and in the wars I used to play
And I’ve called the tune to many a torching session
“Now they say I am a war criminal and I’m fading away
Father please hear my confession”
“I have legalized robbery, called it belief
I have run with the money, I have hid like a thief
Rewritten history with my armies of my crooks
Invented memories, I did burn all the books”
“Oh father please help me for I have done wrong
The man’s too big, the man’s too strong”
—
Ref. 1988: Labour Goes Full Victimhood
Image ref. New Zealand Election Ads (cropped)
Image ref. Werewolf.co.nz
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