Here be wagons

Trevor Mallard is half-right to call me lazy for saying,
as I did in my last blog, that not a squeak had been
heard from Labour MPs on their Red Alert blogsite
about Phil Goff's 'nationhood' speech. I'd checked
back a few days but not far enough: as Trevor says,
both Grant Robertson and Clare Curran blogged
about it on 27 November, the day after the speech.
But 13 days have passed since then, days in which
people up and down the land have been debating the
meaning and significance of the speech, and nothing
further about it has appeared on Red Alert. So my
point still stands. Plenty of Red Alert blogging about
the ETS, educational issues, the 2025 report and
other matters of moment—65 blogs in all, in fact—but
regarding the party leader's debatable (in both senses)
speech, the only sound on Red Alert now, as I said, is
the rumbling of wagons being drawn in a circle—even
though Robertson blogged that it was vital to 'have a
mature debate about difficult and challenging issues'
and Curran insisted 'We must talk about it.' I do note
a sorrowful comment by Robertson on a Chris Trotter
blog about the speech, but that seems to be about it.