Black eyes & baloney in the Blue corner

Watchers with acutely tuned hearing swore they picked up the sounds of former National Party leader Jim Bolger spinning in his political grave last week as Michael Laws celebrated the gullibility of Nat deputy leader Bill English and Nat wannabe top cop Chester Borrows with hilarious photo ops in the local rags.

As an astute commenter reminded us, any politician who comes within a bull’s roar of the Mad Mayor and former Parliamentary Destroyer is condemning themselves to a big dose of political embarrassment and ignominy, along with a certain black eye or two. Above all, anyone with a drop of Blue blood in their veins should know this better than most. As an anonymii reminded us on June 22:

"It's a sad commentary on the lack of institutional knowledge remaining in the National Party that people like Chester and English aren't being reminded what happened to anyone who got within shafting distance of Mickey last time he cultivated the party, ie they duly got shafted.

If John Key has learned anything from his predecessor's flirtation with the Brethren he would do well to apply the lesson to anyone who thinks it's okay to be used for photo opps with Mental Mickey. Compared to the stench that he carries, the Brethren come up smelling like roses.

But as Steve Braunias reminded us in last week’s Sunday Star-Times, Chester may be the biggest rooster in the parliamentary Nats henhouse, but he isn’t exactly the brightest. And Bill English may have fought his way out of the backbench graveyard because John Key needed the numbers, but he’s no stranger to making an ass of himself in ill-conceived political stunts either, as Wikipedia notes:

“By late 2003, however, National's performance in opinion polls remained poor. The party had briefly increased its popularity in the year following the election, but by October its support had fallen to levels only slightly better than what it achieved in the last ballot. English also appeared in a boxing match for a charity against entertainer Ted Clarke. This "stunt" did not boost his polling or that of the National party either, with suggestions that it devalued his image as a serious politician. Don Brash, former governor of the Reserve Bank and a relative newcomer to politics, began to build up support to replace English. While Brash lacked overwhelming popularity, the electorate perceived English as highly ineffectual and prone to embarrassing mistakes. On 28 October, Brash gained sufficient backing in Caucus to replace English as leader."

So when Chester begged his boy pal Bill to come play Gangs-and-Cops with his little friend Michael, one wonders why Bill didn’t opt instead to stay home and update his scrap book with clippings from the last time he stepped in the ring with an “entertainer”.

Instead, he found himself on the ropes and punch drunk. Instead of taking a swing at the Mad Mayor, babbling Bill delivered a wild left hook at Wanganui and showed just how unsuited he is to life in the political ring when he said he'd heard Wanganui is one of the quietest cities in NZ after dark: "Is that because people are too scared to go out?"

Newboy John Key was safely out of the country when Michael Laws was rubbing the Nats’ noses in his political excrement so perhaps he’s blissfully unaware of the sewerage pond that his deputy and big member for Whanganui are wallowing in. Jim Bolger, on the other hand, has never forgiven nor forgotten the time that Michael Laws went through the Tories like a dose of epsoms salts. As he told the 1996 National Party Wellington Division conference in Palmerston North:

“Special greetings to the delegates from Napier and Hawke's Bay where the political spotlight has focused these past few days. Where the New Zealand First politician Michael Laws cheated, covered up, was found out and resigned. There was nothing noble in the resignation, it was forced on New Zealand First in a desperate attempt to stop a sordid story of deceit engulfing the whole of New Zealand First.”

And as an aside, we’d be grateful to any Watchers who might care to enlighten us what dark deeds Bolger hinted at next:

“With the many allegations still around it is a case of watch this space for further developments. Including who, or what, the original cover-up was designed to hide. Who were the "certain people", using Michael Laws' own words, that he was trying to protect from what?”

Meanwhile, Michael and his imaginary friends continue to play his solo game of Stand-or-Not to a chorus of yawns from Castlecliff Beach to Aramoho and beyond. We’ll leave the last word on that to a comment made on David Farrar’s KiwiBlog back in November when Mickey got himself and his kids into Women’s Daze with the breathtaking announcement that he had discovered there was life after politics and his kids were just the best thing since sliced balony. From KiwiBlog:

"I don't think Michael Law's latest break from politics will last very long. Spending more time with the family? Yeah right! He'll be bored stiff. He can get his own talk show on one of TVNZ's new digital channels. Perhaps a NZ version of "Jerry Springer". Or why not combine travel show with reality TV and let Laws holiday in Tonga where he'll be running for his life from a lot of very angry strapping Tongans who may well take offence at his "brown slug" tribute to their former king. Or he could team up with infomercial queen Suzanne Paul and use his considerable persuasive skills to hook us onto a new range of "non-run" mascara."

AND LAWSWATCH MICKEY AWARD FOR COMMENT OF THE WEEK GOES TO:

The first meeting of the Mayoral/Iwi Taskforce on Gangs was held this afternoon. It resolved the following:
* that the taskforce reflect these emphases by changing its name to the Council/Iwi Taskforce on Youth Well-being;

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Hey Mickey, sounds like you got told where to get off yesterday! What's the matter with those Iwi people -- don't they understand you called it the MAYORAL taskforce because the focus was on YOU? 1:42 PM, June 22, 2007