Former Labour MP Gaurav Sharma has earned a lot of admiration and respect from opponents of the ghastly government we have at present, but he can’t take for granted that he will pick up votes from National or ACT supporters to get back into Parliament.

For one thing, he has not made clear what his policies are on other aspects of the regime’s plans — Apartheid, no Free Speech, tax increases to fund expansion of big government, Globalism, Climatism and Wokeism.

For another, pink may be seen as simply a watered down version of the traditional Communist Red, as stated in the Labour Party Anthem “The people’s flag is deepest red.”

During the 1970s, a parody version of this appeared which began: The people’s flag is deepest pink / it’s not as red as you might think.

As election victors in constituency seats are decided under ‘First Past the Post’, in a by-election there are inevitably concerns about vote splitting in seats that aren’t safe for either major party — which describes both Hamilton seats.

In 2020 as a Labour candidate Gaurav Sharma got 20,703 votes against 14.436 for the incumbent National MP. But the previous election in 2017 the figures were 18,842 for the National member and 11,111 for Sharma. With the reduced turnout in a by-election the combined vote for Sharma and the Labour candidate may be about 15,000 and two thirds of that for Sharma. How many will National get — between 10,000 and 12,000? Some National and possibly some ACT supporters are likely to choose to support Sharma as an interim measure until the next general election a year away, particularly in view of what he has had to say to date about the Jacinda Junta (see earlier posts).