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Weeks like this don’t come often enough between elections. By now, Chris Carter will probably be gone from the Labour Party, and it’s certain that he signed the death warrant in his own handwriting.

His attempt at bringing about a leadership change or getting back at Phil Goff for demoting him has completely backfired. Whatever he was trying to achieve, he took himself down at the same time and did it in the most childish way. Talking behind the leader’s back may be expected in politics, but denying it, kind of admitting it when caught red-handed, and then claiming he was glad it came out was just a futile attempt to spin his actions into something noble. 
   This arrogant attempt at nobility has now led him to fall on his sword, and try to take Goff down with him whatever the cost. And it might just work, although not in time for the next election.
   Carter himself will face a tough fight if he thinks he can hold onto his electorate as an independent. Despite what some supportive vox pops on the street may say, few MPs are re-elected independent of their party.
   Voters will be put off by this internal mess and a former Labour MP speaking out against his own party. Any others within caucus who may have been plotting a tilt at the leadership before the election will have been sent scurrying. Another coup within the year before the election would be too dangerous for the Labour Party. The one thing Carter may have achieved is ensuring that Phil Goff will lead through the next election.
   But he has damaged the brand at the same time. He has made enough media appearances to make an idea start to stick in the voter’s minds: that Phil Goff is a loser, and even Labour thinks so. There are now a large number of quotes from a former Labour minister claiming Goff is unelectable. These will resurface next year, and it won’t be pretty.
   Goff has been failing since the very beginning. As a senior minister he was too involved in the government that got turfed out at the last election. He keeps saying (mostly) the right things, but as the preferred Prime Minister polls have consistently shown, he doesn’t have traction and isn’t gaining any. It’s one thing to debate potentially unpopular National Party policy during the term, but once the campaign starts, much greater focus moves onto the party leaders, and Goff is doing more to put people off Labour than bring them in.
   It’s awkward, but he’s been consistently losing a nation-wide popularity contest, and he’s not going to recover at this stage. The one good thing for Labour is that this gives them yet another term to bring the new faces to the front.