I was standing in for Kim Hill on National Radio. On that morning’s guest list was the Leader of the Opposition Helen Clark. Her ‘preferred prime minister’ ratings at the time were dire. Towards the end of the interview I said to her, “You don’t look very happy.”

Not long afterwards I had a call from Helen’s office asking if I could come over for a chat. The possibility of Callingham & Edwards giving Helen some media advice was discussed. To my eternal shame my reply was that I was unsure whether she ‘could be fixed’.

I’m conflicted. There’s a war going on in my brain. It’s a war between the media trainer and the champagne socialist, a title given me by my so-called friends.

The champagne socialist wants and expects Jacinda Ardern to win the election.

It’s been interesting, if not exactly cheering, to note that, within hours of her winning the job of leading the Labour Party, the possibility that Jacinda Ardern might conceive a child while in office has been advanced as an impediment to her ability to be an effective Prime Minister.

Precisely the opposite argument was advanced by the Right about Helen Clark when she entered Parliament and as she rose to prominence as a potential party leader. Her choice not to have children was not only held against her but interpreted and expressed in the most cruel fashion as evidence that she was an unnatural woman and, in all probability, a lesbian.

One might have thought that Helen’s subsequent career might have put paid to this level of chauvinistic prejudice but it seems not. As the French have it: Plus ca change, plus c’est la meme chose. The more things change the more they remain the same.

You can’t win, baby!

Being a media trainer is a bit like being a singing teacher.You have to have a very good ear. It’s not merely about being able to correct glaring examples of poor pronunciation, diction or tone. John Key’s tendency to insert a ‘sh’ into certain words usually before a ‘t’, producing a somewhat Germanic ‘sch’ sound (Aushtralia), and Helen Clark’s rather mannish tone and overly forceful delivery both invited derision and had the potential to prematurely end their stellar careers.

I once had the opportunity of giving a few pointers to John Key on his interviewee performance. TVNZ had decided to arrange some interview training for its high-profile newsreaders, including Simon Dallow. Each had to arrive with a guest of their own choosing, whom they would interview under the critical eye of Brian Edwards and Judy Callingham. Simon introduced us to his choice of interviewee, a chap called John Key, whom I had not only never met, but never heard of.

The mysterious Mr Key was pleasant, agreeable, made a few nervous jokes and did a perfectly competent couple of interviews with Simon. When it was over, Judy and I make some helpful suggestions to Mr Key, thanked him for coming and then spent some time chatting to Simon about improving his already proficient interviewing style.

John Key would eventually become Leader of the Opposition. I have to say that neither Judy nor I would have considered, let alone predicted that outcome, as he left the training studios in Shortland Street.

In 1997 Jenny Shipley became the first female prime Minister of New Zealand when Jim Bolger resigned rather than face almost certain defeat in a coup which Shipley had brokered while Bolger was overseas.

Helen Clark deeply resented the fact that Shipley became New Zealand’s first female Prime Minister without ever going to the country. It was, she said, like climbing Everest only to find that your opponent had already got there by helicopter.

Our association with Helen Clark began in 1996 when I was standing in for Kim Hill on her 9am National Radio programme Nine to Noon. The schedule included a longish interview with the Leader of the Opposition. In the course of the interview, I said to Helen that I didn’t think she looked very happy.

Later that day her secretary rang to ask if I could spare the time to come and speak to Helen. We met and she told me that she had been taken aback by my saying that she didn’t look very happy. She wondered if I might be interested in assisting her to improve her personal and Labour’s poll ratings which were then dire. I’m not proud of my response which was to the effect that I thought her situation was “unfixable”.

That is one of the more egregious errors of judgment I have made in my career as a media trainer. Fortunately I had the opportunity to put it right. Helen Clark would eventually win three general elections and a reputation as one of this country’s finest Prime Ministers.

My other egregious error was in writing off John Key in similar fashion. As Helen’s advisors, including Judy and myself, sat around discussing tactics for the first Leaders’ Television Debate of the 2008 election, the general tone was to the effect that the outcome was pretty well a foregone conclusion. Key could not possibly win. Helen was his intellectual and tactical superior. It was no contest.

Key won that debate hands down. It was as if he had changed personality overnight. The quiet, gentlemanly, sometimes humorous Leader of the Opposition was loud, interruptive, aggressive, dismissive and contemptuous of his opponent.

Helen would, in our assessment, score marginal wins in the two remaining debates.But it is extremely difficult to come back from a first debate defeat.

Media trainers are bound to get it wrong one day. The closeness to your clients blinds you to their weaknesses and to your clients’ opponents’ strengths.

I have unbounded admiration for Helen Clark who is today a mover and shaker in the much wider world of international politics.

But though Michelle Boag and I have played political conkers on Jim Mora’s ‘The Panel’ for several years now, I also admire and like John Key. I rate him as a highly successful New Zealand Prime Minister, who, like his predecessor, has done great service for his country. Maybe the best thing you can say about any male politician is, ‘Seems like a nice guy’. John Key seems to me like a nice guy. And his resignation from the top job is manna from heaven for the Opposition.

Is that the stirring of excitement of a frustrated political media trainer that I feel coursing through my veins? Or the horror of thinking that our next PM might just be Paula Bennett?

Check the flights to Belfast for me, would you, Judy dearest!

Over the past three or four months I’ve made several appearances on The Paul Henry Show, theoretically in the role of informed media commentator. If you type ‘Paul Henry’ into the search box at the top of this page, you’ll find a number of seemingly contradictory posts on the controversial Mr Henry. They range from enthusiastic approval of his jbroadcasting skill to a call for his immediate sacking in the aftermath of ‘moustache-gate’, his mirth at the name of New Dehli’s Chief Minister, Sheila Dikshit, his description of Susan Boyle as ‘retarded’ and his offensive question to John Key as to whether the next Governor General after Anand Satyanand would look a bit more like a New Zealander.

I was right on both counts. Henry is a brilliant broadcaster who is never far from and occasionally crosses the line of acceptable broadcasting standards. I know I will regret having said this, but he’s also extremely bright.

Henry and I are of course politically poles apart. I stood as a Labour candidate in Miramar in 1972; he stood for National in the Wairarapa in 1999. And Judy and I were media advisors to Helen Clark for well over a decade. So there’s a bit of generally good-natured sparring between us on the morning show. A month ago, after he had described something I’d said about him as ‘vile’, I responded, ‘I like you Paul – when I am world dictator your death will be swift and painless.’  (I stole the line from one of my stepson’s T-shirts!)

This morning I told Paul that my appearances on his show were costing me my friends and cited an entirely fictional email from Helen Clark in New York warning me against any continued association with him. This gave Paul a wonderful opening to get stuck into the bullying, humourless bloody left. In response I felt obliged to withdraw my compliment of the previous month and inform him that I’d never actually liked him, though I very much liked his mother. Was he sure that this lovely woman really was his mother? It’s  quite a fun exchange.   

NO IT ISN’T!!!

“I watched the paul Henry show this morning and was astounded at your gullibility in becoming the shows laughing stock. Your politically biased / humorless approach in telling the viewers how you (and Helen Clarke)  dislike paul Henry is exactly what the show was seeking. what you failed to appreciate is that  the paul Henry show is appealing for its entertaining informative style.  by taking exception to jibes from paul Henry you have re enforced why those boorish self righteous labour folk were not elected. the real humor is that the guests like yourself don’t see if coming and gladly volunteer to be the shows fodder! keep up the good work!” Sic.

I’m grateful to Tim Hunter, the author of this analysis which was in my Inbox when I got home from the show this morning. It confirms what I have long known – that offering sarcasm or irony to a New Zealander is, if not precisely casting pearls before swine, at least inviting the prospect of being taken literally and therefore totally misunderstood. Sarcasm and irony both involve not saying what you mean. To take either literally thus involves deriving precisely the opposite meaning to that intended by the speaker.

This is what has happened to Mr Hunter. He can at least take comfort from being one of a vast number of Kiwis who just don’t get either irony or hyperbole. It’s important to know this when writing for a Kiwi audience. Expressing the opinion that hanging is too good for people who hog the outside lane on the motorway, or too good for the inventor of the leaf blower or or too good for parents who allow their five-year-old daughters to let out ear-piercing screams in restaurants, will produce a torrent of correspondence both for and against hanging the perpetrators of these crimes.

My personal view is that hanging is too good for humourless people. I cannot put it any better than Clive James whom I have quoted on this topic numerous times:

‘Common sense and a sense of humour are the same thing moving at different speeds. A sense of humour is just common sense dancing. Those who lack humour lack common sense and should be trusted with nothing.’

Shit happens, John. I’ve been “let go”, sacked from more broadcasting jobs in New Zealand than I care to remember. And, more than once, with absolutely no warning.  To add insult to injury, the sackings generally occurred at a time when the show was enjoying both public acclaim and ratings success.

Top of the Morning (1994-1999)

In December 1999 my producer, Catherine Saunders, and I were summoned to Wellington for a meeting with Radio New Zealand CEO Sharon Crosbie, an old friend of both of us.  “Summoned”  is perhaps the wrong word. Catherine and I had made a habit of going down to Wellington just before Christmas to persuade Sharon that the success of TOTM merited yet another increase in our pay. Sharon would sigh wearily but to date had come to the party.

We were pretty sure of a warm reception. The latest radio survey had just come out. TOTM, whose previous incarnation had a cumulative audience of around 80,000 when I took over the slot in 1995, now had an audience of 340,000. It was the highest rating Saturday morning radio programme in the country, not to mention outrating almost every other programme on National Radio. We had every reason to expect a warm reception from the boss.

We were called in separately to be told the news. I’d been sacked.

To this day I have absolutely no idea why I was sacked as host of TOTM. Poor ratings? Get real! Poor listener response? Ditto! My role as media advisor to Helen Clark, the newly elected Prime Minister? Hardly, TOTM was a politics-free zone with the exception of one personality-style interview – with Jenny Shipley! Which leaves two defamation writs in 5 years, neither of which, in my reasonably informed opinion, should every have been settled.

Certainly not the second, in which Paul Holmes claimed $5,000 for allegedly having been defamed by yours truly on the show

This is what happened. A close friend of Paul had told me Paul had been highly disappointed by the low-key nature of a TV election debate he’d chaired between Jenny Shipley and Helen Clark. Paul had, according to the close friend, “been hoping for a cat fight”. I mentioned this in passing on the show. Paul issued a writ against RNZ for defamation and RNZ caved. I’m not sure which is more unbelievable – for a broadcaster of Pauls’ reputation to be so thin-skinned, or Radio New Zealand so chicken-livered as to settle this preposterous suit.

You know the rest, John. When the news got out, you interviewed me on TV3 News about the sacking. You were very supportive.

Then there was a public outcry. Thousands of people wrote to Radio New Zealand to protest. A couple of “offers they know you can’t accept” were made to me by  RNZ during all of this.

Sound familiar?

Shit happens, John.

But wait, there’s more!

Gallery (1969-70)

After two not unremarkable years as an interviewer on the ground-breaking television current affairs programme, Gallery, the NZBC offered me a measly $15 a week increase to renew my contract for a third year.

For the previous two years I’d been a reporter on the Christchurch edition of Town and Around, a job I absolutely loved. I was tempted to come to Wellington to join the Gallery team by a $7,000 a year contract which not only included two Gallery programmes a week but  producing and appearing on Checkpoint ‘on my days off’.

Within six months I was more famous than Paul Holmes ever would be, admittedly because there was only one TV channel in New Zealand at the time. So naturally I regarded the $15 as an insult and threw my toys out of the cot. Which, I suspect, was exactly what the Corporation had hoped would happen.

I then found myself unemployed and seemingly unemployable.

Shit happens, John.

Radio Windy (1973-75)

Having been rejected as their MP by the good people of Miramar (Shit really happened there, John!) I got a job as a talkback host on the fledgling Radio Windy in Wellington. Adult talkback 5 mornings a week and a children’s talkback session on Sunday. Whew! But great ratings and feedback. And the kids’ session was fun. (Sam Hunt once swapped poems with the listening children for three hours while knocking back a full flagon of white wine.)

Radio Windy didn’t renew my contract for a third year. My relentless attacks on Rob Muldoon had offended the station’s right-wing management and, I suspect, their advertisers. I was “let go”.

Shit happens, John.

Edwards on Saturday, Fair Go (1975-85)

A decade with no shit worth mentioning, John. A halcyon time never going to end. You know the feeling.

It did end of course.

Radio Pacific (1989-90)

I was wooed to Auckland as a morning talkback host with a huge dollop of cash, a house and a car. Hated every moment of it. I loathe talkback and wanted to interview interesting people. And it was soul-destroying to be in the middle of an interview with Alex Haley about his slave ancestors and have to break for ads or go to the third race at Trentham.

Half way through my one-year contract, I interviewed a guy from the Aids Foundation. I was on my way to the studio the following morning when I  was stopped by someone I took to be a member of the Board who asked me who I was having on the show that morning.

“Armistead Maupin.”

“Who’s that?”

“Gay writer from San Francisco. Wrote Tales of the City. Very famous.”

“Can’t have faggots on the programme two days in a row, Brian.”

I recounted this conversation to the charming Maupin on air and we spent most of the remaining three hours discussing this type of homophobia.

Some days or weeks later, I was called into the boss’s office. “This isn’t working, Brian,” he said. “We’re going to have to let you go.”

I assumed he meant in a month or a fortnight, but he meant right away. If I’d had a desk, I’d have had to clear it then and there.

Judy came home to find me half pissed and dancing in the living room.

“I’ve been sacked,” I slurred, “This is the happiest day of my life’.

“Thank god, it was me who wrote the contract,” she replied.

Shit happens, John.

*

I started writing this because it occurred to me that there were some similarities between your recent experience with TV3 and one or two of my more memorable media exits, including the tyranny of ratings and “the offer they know you can’t accept”.

So here’s my suggestion: After your last programme, go home, get pissed, put on some music and dance around the living room. It’s wonderfully therapeutic.

Cheers

Brian

PS: That’s me with Eric Morecambe on Morecambe beach. We’re singing (and dancing to) Bring Me Sunshine.

In the 30-odd years that Judy and I have been providing media advice and training to prime ministers, prostitutes and pretty well every profession in-between, our teaching mantra has remained the same: “Be straightforward, tell the truth, admit your mistakes”. It’s a practical rather than a necessarily moral slogan. Being straightforward with the media, telling the truth and admitting your mistakes is quite simply the only strategy that works. Everything else will get you into trouble or more trouble than you’re already in.

Our experience of our elected representatives – left, right and centre – has led us to the conclusion that most are reasonably honest and that the lying politician is a much rarer creature than the general population appears to think. Persuading MPs, Cabinet Ministers and the men and women who held the top job to be straightforward and tell the truth has not been a difficult or even a necessary task.

But will the buggers admit their mistakes? No way. To avoid the usual accusations of left-wing bias on my part, I’ll cite two examples from my side of the house. Helen Clark and the painting which she signed but didn’t paint; Helen Clark and the police car speeding her to Eden Park to watch the rugby.

Neither of these were hanging offences and reasonable explanations (or excuses if you prefer) could have been offered for both: PMs put their moniker on all sorts of things with charitable intent; the New Zealand Prime Minister arriving late for an international footie match isn’t a good look. And anyway, these cops are brilliant and safe drivers.

But Helen, who had been brought up in a family where lying was just about a capital offence, was unwilling to own responsibility for either of these relatively minor transgressions. She was reluctant to admit that she’d made a mistake or even that she’d failed to prevent others making mistakes on her behalf.

The outcome in terms of public and press reaction was extremely negative in both cases. Simple concessions, perhaps with a touch of humour, could have avoided all the fuss: “Well, I sign a lot of things for charity; but maybe I didn’t make it clear that I hadn’t actually painted the picture. I couldn’t paint like that to save my life; Yes, not a good look, I’ll admit, and not a good example to other drivers. Guilty as charged, I’m afraid.”

The problem with denial when you’ve done something wrong is that far from making the issue go away, it amplifies and protracts it. Admitting your mistakes tends to have the opposite effect. Your opponents may have a field day of self congratulation, but it will at least be brief.   

This is the advice that John Key’s advisors should have been giving him ever since the publication of Nicky Hager’s book. Had he been given that advice he would not have found himself in the position he found himself in on television last night: being called severely to account by both right-leaning Mike Hosking on TV1 and liberal/left leaning John Campbell on TV3. The Prime Minister sounded increasingly like Sergeant Schultz, his repeated “I know NOTHING” denials  less and less credible or convincing as the interviews proceeded. He looked irritated and out of sorts, frustrated by the inability of these idiots to see his point of view that, though he was Minister for the SIS, he could not be held responsible for the actions of people in his department that impinged on the impartiality of the Service. It had nothing to do with him.

This morning’s papers would have brought him no relief. No-one had a good word to say about John Key. John Armstrong, the Herald’s traditionally considered political correspondent, opined that Key “would do himself and National a power of good if he dropped the feeble charade  which sees him in denial of the dirty tricks operation that was run out of his office.”

Armstrong was no less condemning of the Prime Minister’s performance during question time in Parliament which he dubbed “breathtakingly silly”:

“It involved either not answering the questions raining down on him from the Opposition or flinging red herring after red herring at his inquisitors in a vain attempt to divert debate away from what had been going on in his office. It was a display unworthy of the Prime Minister.”

“An apology for the whole episode,” Armstrong suggested, “would, in contrast, make up for the absence of heads rolling. It would show Key took ministerial responsibility seriously.”

Amen to that!

But it’s too late now. Key’s credibility is shot. His defence of the indefensible began with the preposterous distinction he attempted to draw between when he was speaking as the PM and when he was speaking as the Leader of the National Party.

Inspector General of Security Intelligence  Cheryl Gwyn’s report, which upholds many of Hager’s claims of “dirty politics” during the Key administration, has drawn the Prime Minister into ever more fanciful and unconvincing denials. Calm, quiet, trust-me, no-worries John has gone. He looks and sounds uncomfortable. He looks and sounds like a man in trouble. He looks and sounds desperate and dishonest. Perhaps for the first time in his term as Prime Minister, John Key is sweating it.

And as if that weren’t enough there’s this fellow on the other side of the room who has a reputation as a straight shooter and an honest broker.

And it was all going so well.

I’m wary of predictions. I’ve got a few wrong. But I think we’re at the start of a political sea change. I think National and its motley bedfellows are going to lose the 2017 election to a revitalised Labour/Green coalition.

I may be proven wrong of course. But, if I am,  I’ll take my own advice and admit it.

In the past I’ve written several posts and articles about voluntary euthanasia. The ‘voluntary’ bit is crucial, since no-one who wants to go on living, however great their pain or however inconvenient their continuing existence to others, should be cajoled or browbeaten into changing their mind.

But it is hard to come to terms with the overweening arrogance of someone who believes they have the right to deny another human being, whose ongoing suffering has deprived them of all joy in living and who wishes to end that suffering, the right to do so.

The laws that govern these decisions and procedures will of necessity be complex and they must be watertight. But they are not beyond our ability to design and implement. Other countries have done so.

I don’t want to restart this debate. That is not the purpose of this post. This post is about the significance of comments on euthanasia cited in this morning’s Herald by the four contenders for the Labour Party leadership.

Iain Lees-Galloway has taken over responsibility for the ‘End of Life Choice Bill’  after its sponsor, Maryan Street, failed to get elected in September. Lees-Galloway is apparently gauging support before deciding whether to put the Bill back on the private members’ bill ballot. It was removed last year under pressure from the Labour leadership who, according to the Herald, “were concerned it could be an election-year distraction or that it could deter conservative voters”. The new Labour leader, whoever that is, could apparently have the deciding voice on the voluntary euthanasia question.

So what did the contenders for that position have to say?

Well, Nanaia Manuta was in favour of reintroducing the bill  because it would show “that Labour would stand up for those difficult conversations that need to be had”.

I thought that was a pretty principled position to take.

David Parker, who voted against legalising voluntary euthanasia in 2003, didn’t want to comment till he’d talked to Lees-Galloway.

Non-committal and therefore less satisfactory perhaps.

Grant Robertson and Andrew Little both support voluntary euthanasia, but neither considered it a priority at the moment. The fairly clear subtext of their replies was that it was a vote-loser and that a party that had polled 25% in September couldn’t afford to be seen supporting unpopular policies.

I’d call that unprincipled.    

But then the unprincipled route to power is the route the Labour Party is currently taking. It believes that it’s not enough for a policy to be a good policy and the right thing to do, if it isn’t also a vote-winning policy, a popular policy. Leadership aspirants are on the record as saying, “No point in introducing good policies that are going to lose you the election.”

*Legalising voluntary euthanasia under strict legal conditions is a good policy but not a vote-winner, so we’ll forget that in the meantime. (Though “the meantime” is a very long time indeed for those whose lives have become intolerable to them!)

*Gradually increasing the age at which we’re entitled to receive superannuation is a also very good and sensible policy but apparently also a vote-loser. So out with that “in the meantime”.

*And ditto a capital gains tax “in the meantime”.

These good policies, the candidates told us, had “scared the voters off”.

There are precedents galore for this sort of thinking of course, for the abandonment of principle, of forward-thinking, enlightened or socially responsible policies and platforms because they’re unlikely to win or more likely to lose your party votes. Leadership gives way to “followship”.

It’s a depressing view not only of our politicians but also of us, the voters. Are we really so selfish, so venal, so incapable of persuasion that the towel has to be thrown in before the contestants are even in the ring? Have we no admiration for those who stand up for their principles against the seeming odds?

I say “seeming” odds, because the odds can never be totally accurately predicted. But, with the exception of Nanaia Mahuta, these prospective Labour Leaders are betting on the electorate not being motivated by anything other than unprincipled self-interest. That’s pretty bloody offensive really and were I a member of the Labour Party, which I’m not, I wouldn’t vote for anyone who thought so little of me.

Judy and I worked for Helen Clark from June 1996 to November 2008. She made mistakes of course but she was willing to espouse unpopular policies when she thought it was the right thing to do. In the process she took a lot of flak, but the sky didn’t fall in. She still got 3 terms. She wasn’t always loved, but she was greatly admired and respected.

With the exception of Nanaia Mahuta I’m not finding much to admire or respect in this lot. Their core philosophy appears to have everything to do with giving the punters what (they think) they want, and tossing out anything that doesn’t satisfy that principle.

Which is a great pity. Because I happen to think that the Key honeymoon is all but over, that our Prime Minister has confirmed with his own words what many of us have thought for years, that he is a charming dissembler, not wholly upfront, not entirely honest.

So now might be just the time for all good men…

Oh forget it!

I suppose dishonestly reporting that someone else has behaved dishonestly could be regarded as a wonderful example of irony. But if the dishonesty of the reporter is transparent then it’s also a wonderful example of crass stupidity.

Either way, this is precisely what Cameron Slater has recently done. In a post on Whaleoil published a couple of days ago, entitled Manufacturing Clark’s History, Slater refers to a television interview the former New Zealand Prime Minister gave to Australia’s Channel Nine programme The Bottom Line and to a subsequent report on the interview, entitled ‘Helen Clark reflects on life as a leader’, which appeared on Stuff.

The Stuff report of the interview contains numerous quotes of things Clark said. You can tell they’re quotes because they’re all in inverted commas.

At one point in the interview Clark is asked how she pitched for her current job at the United Nations.

She replies: “So my pitch was, ‘This job needs a leader, and I am that leader’”.

That reply is directly followed in the Stuff report by this sentence:

Having led the Labour Party without barely a whisper of a coup for six years in opposition and then nine years as Prime Minister, human resources at the UN could hardly argue that credential.

Note that there are no quotation marks around the sentence. That’s presumably because Clark didn’t say it. Everything else she said in the Channel Nine interview is reported in quotes.   

But this interpretation doesn’t suit Slater’s purposes. So he decides to do the very thing he accuses Clark of – rewrite history:

Helen Clark does so like to re-visit and re-edit her history, aided and abetted by an unquestioning and ill-informed media.

She has recently given a nice soft cosy interview to Channel Nine in Australia where this claim was made:

“Having led the Labour Party without barely a whisper of a coup for six years in opposition and then nine years as Prime Minister, human resources at the UN could hardly argue that credential.”

Oh rly?

Is that what she told the hapless Channel Nine reporter? I don’t see where he’d have got it from otherwise… he wouldn’t have the background knowledge of NZ politics.

And then Fairfax repeat it unquestioningly… probably because there isn’t anyone there who’s older than 1.

Or indeed at Whaleoil. Now here’s the problem. If you follow Slater’s link to the Fairfax report on Clark’s interview on The Bottom Line, you’ll find (unsurprisingly) a link to the original TV interview itself. And nowhere in that  interview does Clark say, “Having led the Labour Party without barely a whisper of a coup for six years in opposition and then nine years as Prime Minister, human resources at the UN could hardly argue that credential.”

And unless Slater  (perhaps understandably) doesn’t read his own posts, he must have known that. So this is just a deliberately dishonest assertion. Or, in the very kindest interpretation, a preposterous piece of circular reasoning that Clark must have said this to someone because that is the way Clark “does so like to re-visit and re-edit her history”.

The fact of the matter is that Clark actually refers in the Aussie TV interview to coups and rumours of coups in the mid 90s: “There was always party room rumbles as well that there would be some kind of leadership coup and I always stared those rumbles down.”

More than that, Clark has talked frequently and openly about the abortive threat to her leadership in May 1996. She relates the events in detail in my book Helen, Portrait of a Prime Minister:

In May 1996, just before caucus, I get this delegation telling me to stand down. From memory there was Michael Cullen, Phil Goff, Annette King, Koro Wetere, Jim Sutton… These people had rushed around the caucus counting numbers and then decided they’d come and confront me and ask me to stand down, and say there was a majority who wanted that to happen… And I said to them, “Well, if you want a change of leader, you’re going to have to go into the caucus and move a motion…” And they never did it. They walked out into the corridor to the caucus and so did I, and nothing was said.

So is this rank dishonesty or crass stupidity on Whaleoil’s part? Hard to tell really. That’s the problem with ‘my good friend’ Cam – it’s often so hard to tell.

I recall a meeting in the Leader of the Opposition’s office some time in 1999. Present were Helen Clark, Heather Simpson, Mike Munro, Michael Hirschfeld (then President of the Labour Party), Judy Callingham, Brian Edwards and possibly some others. Among the topics for debate was whether Labour should enter into a coalition agreement with Jim Anderton’s Alliance Party. The view of those in favour prevailed.

Under MMP, Labour won the election taking 49 seats in parliament, while the Alliance took ten. Fears that the Alliance’s more left-wing policies would damage Labour were proved to be unfounded.

In 2014, Labour Leader David Cunliffe has declined Russel Norman’s invitation  to enter into a pre-election coalition agreement with the Green Party, while conceding that, should Labour win the election, an unspecified number of senior Green Party MPs could expect to be part of his Cabinet.

Though it can be defended – a la Winston – as an appropriate reluctance to enter into coalition agreements before the votes have been counted, it’s hard to see Cunliffe’s rejection of the Green’s marriage, or at least ‘engagement’ proposal, as anything other than a snub. At the very least, the Labour leader is making it perfectly clear to Norman/Turei just who will be running the show, should National lose the election.

The thinking behind this is probably that too close an association with the Greens is as likely to damage Labour’s chances of winning the election as it is of enhancing those chances. Too many people see the Greens as flakes.

This is essentially a rerun of the arguments against too close an association between Labour and the Alliance in 1999. But Labour won that election in a landslide.

And there’s a major difference between the Alliance then and the Greens today.  The Alliance would  survive for only three years in Parliament. The Greens are today a major political force, currently with 14 seats in Parliament. And, under the Norman/Turei leadership, they have largely lost their image as environmental flakes.

In my submission, far from weakening Labour’s electoral chances, a formal pre-election coalition agreement with the Greens would have created a strong centre-left force, a blend of pragmatism and idealism, clearly differentiated from National  and with wide electoral appeal. And strength in numbers.

Cunliffe’s rejection of the Greens’ pre-election engagement proposal has merely served to bolster the public view of a divided left, incapable of getting its act together, let alone running the country.

I’m not sure if he consulted Helen on this, but I very much doubt that she would have recommended snubbing your future coalition partner five  months out from an election when the latest political poll has you on 9% as preferred Prime Minister against John Key on 42.6% and your party on 31.2%  against National’s 45.9%.

Were I David Cunliffe’s chief political strategist, which I am not, I might have recommended Polonius’ advice to his son Laertes:

“Those friends thou hast, and their adoption tried,

Grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel.”

It’s not a particularly good analogy. In the play, Hamlet stabs Polonius who is hiding behind the arras. Political strategists rarely get their just deserts.