The Pigeon

Labour promises ‘bold, new’ policies

At its recent party conference, the Labour party promised “bold, new” policies before the next election. “Our old policies were printed in rather bland fonts” said Phil Goff, “the citizens of New Zealand deserve better”.

Mr Goff went on to outline a plan to break away from the “Times” font that has characterised Labour policy documents since the 1980s reforms under Lange, to replace it with bold, Times New Roman in all Labour party policy documentation. “We are always looking for new ways to promote diversity, so we might even add in some Courier New, or Comic Sans, just to mix things up a bit,” continued Goff.

Critics of the new font argue that the move is not enough to differentiate Labour and position it as the party of the future. “If you look at Len Brown’s recent campaign, one of the things that set him apart from Banks was his willingness to push the envelope into sans serif fonts, and edgier colour schemes,” said one of the party faithful who asked to remain anonymous. Although others outside the conference building were more optimistic, pointing out that Times New Romans was websafe, bold made its policies look more confident, and that in addition to the font change, Phil Goff had hinted that he might be looking to further update the party’s image among voters by getting a makeover and updating his tie collection.