As I watch Chris Hipkins, presumably gleefully, mess about with the India Free Trade deal, I'm reminded this is not the Labour Party that did the FTA with China.

Hipkins is no Helen Clark and in that is a great sadness.

For all those who occasionally contact me and ask of the possibility of a so-called “grand coalition” —a relationship between the Labour and National parties— before you ask, next time look at the way Hipkins plays these games and there is your answer.

Even in areas of broad agreement, they still can't act like grownups.

It's also a lesson in name vs substance.

The Labour Party of the past few years is nothing like Labour of the late 90's and early 2000's. That was a centrist version.

Yes, they still handed out free money to people like students to bribe them in election year. But the rest of the time they actually ran the economy in growth. Compared to Barbara Edmonds, Michael Cullen was a conservative.

In the early parts of 1984 Labour, with David Lange, was similar, and here is your irony that Hipkins fails to recognise: when Labour are, broadly speaking, middle of the road they are actually popular.

Ask Bob Hawke or Paul Keating or Tony Blair – centrist Labour is successful Labour.

By the time you take modern Labour with Hipkins and Sepuloni, and add the Greens in the mix, you are seeing the left wing “group think” that not only keeps them out of office, but leads to the sort of game playing we have with an FTA.

Yes, the Government probably shouldn’t have to rely on them and for all the games Labour plays, New Zealand First is just as bad with their xenophobic nonsense. But Labour once had a global view.

It's not like the Chinese weren't thought of with great suspicion prior to 2008. But the bigger picture was at play. The realisation that large countries and their economies could be good for everyone was a driving force.

What Labour would do well to do is put this country first. Not score points, not look like children, and not pretend they actually had anything to do with negotiating this thing at all.

FTAs are big picture, not a three-year electoral cycle game.

I don’t think I'm alone in wishing there were more adults in the room. Labour 1999-2008 put the current lot to shame.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Mike's Minute: The Labour Party needs to get serious

The Mike Hosking Breakfast