Whither now for Labour?

So where does the Labour Party go now? 3News has released its first political poll since their last one, but the song remains the same - for Phil Goff and Labour anyway.

In the party poll, National is up 2.1 percentage points to 58.1% support. Labour is down 0.8 points to 29.2% support. Ducan Garner comments:

But it is National’s numbers that continue to be remarkable. Despite the sharp rise in unemployment, no one is blaming Key or his Government.

So good numbers for National. More remarkable, given we polled in the week Finance Minister Bill English was outed for his part in the housing allowance saga, which saw him pay back around $14,000.

Garner's comments are interesting. Imagine how bad Labour's numbers might have been if polling took place last week, when Chris Carter was blaming everyone except himself for his spending habits!

But seriously, where does Labour go from here? Because the party has a major problem as regards the Preferred Prime Minister ratings, about which we'll blog in the morning. Labour should, in the grand scheme of things, be clawing back lost ground as unemployment rises and the worst of the recession hits our shores. But they're not - and we suspect that even Labour's Honorary Member for New York will be scratching her head.