I was wrong about the election

I made some rash predictions last time, and also at least one factual error: the Greens did once have an electorate seat. In fact on Saturday night National was returned to Government with a bigger majority than ever. This means one pattern in history hasn’t been broken (National has never had fewer than three terms in a row since it first formed) but another one has (no third-term government in New Zealand history has ever increased its majority). As things stand the National Party holds an absolute majority in Parliament, one of the things MMP was supposed to prevent. The numbers won’t be complete until the special votes come in from New Zealanders overseas, and they tend to favour the Greens. But they won’t be enough to reverse what happened on Saturday. Everybody on the Left is trying to figure out what went wrong, and I’ll join them in the next few days – there are some very odd patterns in the numbers that need attention paid to them. Meanwhile I’m just posting this so you don’t all think I’m sulking.