Chris Trotter

Chris Trotter speaking at the Alliance party conference in 2007

Chris Trotter (born c. 1956) is a left-leaning political commentator in New Zealand.^[1] He is the editor of the occasional Political Review magazine, and is a regular speaker, orator and singer at left-wing, union and socialist events.

Trotter has worked for unions and was on the New Zealand council of the Labour Party.^[2] He writes the "From the Left" column in the Dominion Post, and has also contributed to the Independent Financial Review. He publishes a political commentary blog on the policy.net.nz website, and makes semi-frequent television appearances as a political commentator. His blog is situated here:^[3]

He has attracted criticism from other broad left critics who regard his knowledge of feminist, indigenous and LGBT politics to be insignificant, particularly insofar as their own distributive justice dimensions are concerned ^[4][5]

Trotter is the author of "No Left Turn", a political history of New Zealand.^[6] Novelist, poet and critic C K Stead described the book as "a dashingly written and persuasive elegy for the Scandinavian-style socialist democracy New Zealand might have been, and at the same time a realistic (though at times appropriately angry) acknowledgement that, given the forces, internal and external, ranged against it, the chances of it happening, and lasting, were never very good."^[7]

In February 2008, he said that Helen Clark should stand down before the election and be replaced by Phil Goff, who he thought may have been Labour's only hope of regaining ground with struggling families. He has since recanted, recently arguing that Goff should stand down in his turn before the New Zealand general election, 2011, arguing that David Cunliffe should replace him.^[8][9]

References

1. ^ Drinnan, John (13 November 2009). "TVNZ looking at options for Paul Henry". The New Zealand Herald. http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=10608914&pnum=0. Retrieved 15 February 2010. 
2. ^ McCammon, Belinda (5 September 2007). "Left, right, left - the march of NZ history since the '70s". The New Zealand Herald. http://www.nzherald.co.nz/politics/news/article.cfm?c_id=280&objectid=10461671&pnum=0. Retrieved 15 February 2010. 
3. ^ http://www.bowalleyroad.blogspot.com
4. ^ http://www.norightturn.blogspot.com
5. ^ http://www.gaynz.com/blog/redqueen
6. ^ Trotter, Chris (2007). No Left Turn: The Distortion of New Zealand's History by Greed, Bigotry, and Right-Wing Politics. New Zealand: Random House. http://www.amazon.com/No-Left-Turn-Distortion-Right-Wing/dp/1869418093/. 
7. ^ "Our Favourite Things". Dominion Post. 8 December 2007. 
8. ^ "Labour poll-axed". The Dominion Post. 23 February 2008. http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/282462. Retrieved 15 February 2010. 
9. ^ http://www.bowalleyroad.com/2010/08/leader-labour-needs-to-have.html

Persondata
Name	Trotter, Chris
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	1956
Place of birth
Date of death
Place of death