Inventory 2 at Keeping Stock more than justified the cost of buying last week’s Listener with the mirth he got at Labour’s expense, concluding here with irony from Labour MPs VII.
What struck me from reading the story was the admission from party president Andrew Little that membership has crashed to below 10,000, down from almost 50,000 in 2005.
Even if that doesn’t include unions, that is still a very small number of people paying a subscription to what is supposed to be a major party.
That is very good news for National and its allies.
It is especially good for the Maori Party which is supposed to be a minor party but claims a similar level of membership to Labour.
It is very bad for democracy which requires participation and involvement.
Democracy is supposed to be of, for and by the people not a few idealogs.
The Listener story is previewed here.
Maybe Inventory 2 could claim commission from the Listener because Kiwiblog admits it was reading snippets at Keeping Stock which prompted him to buy a copy. He gives a summary of the story here.
Commission eh? Nice thought Ele, but we think that we’ll stay as hobby bloggers, untainted by big money. That way we can continue to say what we think without fear nor favour 😉
So how many members does the National Party have? Really?
Poneke – I think it’s more than 50,000.
One of the concerns about MMP which gives more power to parties is that the number of parties has increased and the total number of members in any party has fallen.