(First published in The Dominion Post, June 30.)
Two things you never stop learning as a journalist is that
there are usually two sides to a story and that things are often not quite what
they seem. I was reminded of this by the media feeding frenzy over Clutha-Southland
MP Todd Barclay.
On the surface, it looked straightforward enough. Here was a
cocky young MP, a political careerist ordained by the party’s high priests and
priestesses as an up-and-comer, brought down in a steaming heap of ordure – and
committing the unpardonable sin of splattering his leader in the process.
As I watched the story unfold I couldn’t help but think we’d
been here before. Then the name came to me: Aaron Gilmore.
Gilmore, you may recall, was the National MP with an
over-developed sense of entitlement who had a career-ending confrontation in
2013 with a Hanmer Springs hotel waiter who refused his demand for more drinks.
In one of those delicious “don’t you realise who I am?”
moments, Gilmore reportedly threatened to have the waiter sacked. As things turned out, it was Gilmore’s career
that was terminated.
Barclay seemed at first glance to have something in common
with the hapless Gilmore, namely a large dollop of hubris. His downfall had all
the ingredients of a modern morality play, which is how most of the media
played it.
It was several days before Fairfax political editor Tracy Watkins and Jane Clifton in the Listener
weighed in with more nuanced accounts of the affair.
Reading Watkins’ article last Saturday, it was obvious that
Barclay had a lot of National MPs, including one or two heavy hitters, on his
side. He wasn’t hung out to dry, as he undoubtedly would have been if he was
regarded as not worth the time of day.
You could also see how the mess had happened. Stolid,
phlegmatic Bill English had been succeeded after 18 years as electorate MP by
an apparently brash young upstart who, although born in Dipton and raised in
Gore, bore the imprint of a man whose preferred habitats were hedonistic Queenstown
and power-obsessed Wellington.
Factor in an electorate stalwart who had been running
English’s Gore office for more than a decade, and who apparently had her own
way of doing things, and you had a situation ripe for friction. With English
away in Wellington much of the time due to his leadership obligations, she was
often left to run the show and was very likely a centre of power in her own
right. Small wonder that things turned ugly.
To anyone reading Watkins’ and Clifton’s accounts, it
clearly wasn’t a simple case of an arrogant young man spitting the dummy
because he couldn’t have his own way. It was far more complicated than that.
Barclay’s big mistake, of course, was to secretly record
office conversations, presumably with the aim of uncovering disloyalty. In any
circumstances it would have been underhand. Unfortunately it was also illegal.
And what made matters immeasurably worse was that his boss
was drawn into the imbroglio and then seriously messed things up by not being
straight with the media. Fatal.
Even so, you have to wonder how much impact all this had on
the public. The press gallery got very excited, as it always does when it
sniffs blood, but you sensed that people out in Voter Land wondered what all
the fuss was about. It didn’t help that much of the media coverage was confused
and confusing.
There’s one more point to be made about the Barclay affair. As
with Gilmore, National had a problem with a young man who exhibited a surfeit
of self-confidence.
The Nats seem to attract such princelings from time to time.
It might be a slight exaggeration to say that they exude a born-to-rule aura, but
it’s not altogether far from the truth.
I suspect it’s worse in cases where they are elected on the party
list and don’t have an electorate to keep them grounded, and worse still when
National has been in power for two or three terms and they assume this is the
natural order of things.
In the Wairarapa, where I live, we have a slightly different
issue. Our National MP, Alastair Scott, doesn’t have a reputation for
arrogance, but he does give the impression that he thinks all he needs to do to
win re-election is turn up at public events and smile for the camera.
This has been noted in the electorate and it wouldn’t
surprise me if he gets a bit of a fright in September.
Pre loading, hardliners and liberals.
ReplyDeleteAn article in the NZ Initiative confidently asserts that ‘preload drinking’ [ drinking before you go out ] and heavy drinking are not correlated.
Here is some of the reasons the NZI writer gave, who put the finer touches on some conclusions from a study by Michael Daly.
>”The study challenged another easy assumption that people are pre-loading because drinks in bars and clubs is too expensive.
People are not pre-loading because it’s cheaper to drink at home and there is no significant relationship between pre-loading and heavy drinking.
In fact, the ratio between on-license and off-license beverage prices was one of the lowest in the country rankings.”<
That's interesting. I can buy 2 litres of wine for $20, that’s $1 for a 100ml drink, or go to a bar and pay $7 for or 100ml.
So well knock me over with some hog wash, a major ratio there, encouraging drinkers to pre-load. And guess what you already know. The idea of pre-loading is to become affected by alcohol before it costs you too much at a bar.
For those alcoholics who manage to keep drinking dangerously whether young or nearly old age,I recommend a program similar to that I attended in Christchurch.
Appoint a good no nonsense friend to act as supervisor for the next three months..
Book in to the detox centre [ Kennedy in ChCh ] absolutely preloaded with determination
Then transfer to a social recovery at somewhere like the good old Anglicans at the Knox centre for a couple of weeks.
Then join a maintenance program [ AA] forever.