The worm's turn

When even the Chron takes notice of something which doesn't paint Mickey in the most positive light, it's a sure sign something is up. So even John Maslin couldn't resist noting that whilst Mickey was having yet another hissy fit at the MRI in a blatant and ultimately futile attempt to justify his earlier criticism, he was shot down not only by Muzza Hughes (who actually represents Wanganui on the MRI and thus might know a little more than Mickey about what went on) but by Dotty.

"The Wanganui District Council is not the only player in this and, Michael, we know you have your view on this" said Dotty. Translation: you've embarrassed us enough with other territorial local authorities Mickey, now be a good boy and belt up.

This sudden show of bravery might actually be admirable if it wasn't purely motivated by Dotty's now desperate need to distance herself from the handbasket headed for Hell which is diVision. Even the likes of Randhir Dahya, Don McGregor and Rangi Wills have occasionally choked on the garbage they've been fed. But Mickey has always been able to rely on his dumpy chorus line of Don McGregor and Nicki Higgie, with Sue Pepperell in the backline from Wellington and Phillipa Baker-Hogan trying to sing solo from the wings so as to keep her distance from the melee on stage.

No matter what the provocation - be it abuse of female Council staff, failing to attend civic functions and expecting her to fill in, or insisting she be a human shield during the Code of Conduct hearings - Dotty has stood by her man.

Only now, when he's made it abundantly clear that he won't be standing by her; that the three years of abject humiliation have all been for nothing, has the worm realised she won't be getting her turn at the Mayoralty after all.

It's pique and political expediency which have led to this independent frame of mind, nothing more. Dotty has been used and cast aside, yet she was a willing participant the entire time - no doubt laying back and thinking of the Mayoralty. To expect admiration for her "independence" now underestimates the intelligence of the electorate - and there's no better illustration of that than the fact that even the pro-Mickey commenters here are following the lead of their idol and consigning Dotty to the scrap heap.

And so ends another political career of someone foolish enough to align themselves with Michael Laws...

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And the crowd said.... "yawn"

We'd like to report that a shocked New Zealand took a moment to take in the news that Wanganui would soon be Mickeyless and then burst into a chorus consisting of half lamentation and half pleading him to come and make a Mickey out of their little corner of the land.

We'd like to, but we'd be fibbing worse than a Mayoral press release. Because the reaction to the news that the Ditch would, from next year, no longer have a Diva has been muted to the point of inaudibility.

David Farrar, who's displayed a confusingly ambivalent attitude towards Mickey in the past - given that Farrar and an associate once got into a spot of bother for issuing a press release claiming Laws had been assassinated and police were interviewing several thousand suspects - did announce the news on the excellent Kiwiblog.

Interestingly Farrar - who first encountered Laws back in the latter's National MP days - agrees with our cautious approach to celebration:

Laws Watch are not celebrating yet - they think it may be a feint. I have no reason to doubt it. Speaking as someone who personally quite strongly dislikes Laws, I don't think he was all bad for Wanganui. Small town Mayors often need to be a personality, and Laws did that. I suspect he would have been re-elected if he had stood, but am not aware of any polls which would indicate either way.

Since Kiwiblog has a larger and arguably less biased readership than does LawsWatch, we've left that post to percolate a few days and now bring you a hand-picked selection of the finest comments:

• Laws has a toxic personality who did not work well with others. He never has. I knew him 100 years ago at Parliament and he was odd then. He has softened since then but the basic irritating personality remains. If you cannot work with others in politics you will get nothing done. Michael seems not to grasp this point.



• Oh yes never forget the old Antoinette Beck 'signature fib' .... talk about gone by lunchtime ...themz where (sic) the days !!!



• I can't stand big egos, but Laws had some great policies which I would love to see other parties embrace. He held referendums to decide policy, and he also when the situation demanded it adopted a firm commonsence non P.C. position. We need more like him.



• I'll stick my hand up and say I like him as well.



• He is a dad then he is my friend too. Good luck to him whatever he does in the future.



• Like him or hate him, under the current political climate we need more people like Michael who are unafraid to publicly debate contentious issues.



• 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.
  
  Like Tim Shadbolt he'll get "withdrawl symptoms" and scour the country searching from some provincial town to brighten up. Timaru? Upper Hutt? He may even go for the Auckland City mayoralty. Well why not? The media attention is almost unlimited, what with the transport problems and stadium fiasco. I'm sure Laws will be in his element having a go at the ARC and most of Auckland cheering him on.
  
  In the meantime here are a few suggestions for Laws to fill in those spare 60-hours or so a week, once he retires as Wanganui Mayor next year.
  
  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.
  
  Anyway I'm sure the possibilties are endless for Michael Laws and we'll be hearing more from him.



• I would never say that I always agreed with Laws but the NZ political scene will be far worse off without him.We need more like him, men who are not afraid to state an opinion and men who are not afraid to stand up to the sisterhood.
  
  I particularly liked his blunt and accurate comments earlier in the year about Cindy Kiro, nobody else (apart from perhaps John Banks) would have the guts to say what he said even when they are right.



• Laws is a failure in politics and I think Michael might just begin to appreciate that. In democratic politics you have to convince a majority of people to support you. This is something Michael can never seem to do. There is an art to getting people to support your case, flattery, pressure, incentives. Michael has one technique which is to say I am smarter than all of you, so support my case or I will jump up and down and insult you with my sharp tongue. How can a person like that succeed in politics and Michael simply does not of course. Clever, sharp brain, dumb politician.



• I was surprised to see him saying he would step down, he seemed to be the kind of guy who would slug it out to the bitter end.
  
  I think the "Laws Watch" people should get a life, these types of people like attacking politicians but they all have their own agendas and politics that they bring into it. I tend to be very suspicious of people like that setting up websites to peddle their little pet cause.
  
  Laws is an abrasive fellow and the value of his contribution to Wanganui can be questionable, like Banks and some of those other outspoken people who seem to make it from national to local politics these days.



• "I would never say that I always agreed with Laws but the NZ political scene will be far worse off without him.We need more like him, men who are not afraid to state an opinion and men who are not afraid to stand up to the sisterhood."
  
  There are lots of people around who can do that without being abrasive and deliberately offensive like Laws is. His comments for example about the King of Tonga are about as useful and in a way analogous to that idiot who set fire to his car outside the King's Auckland residence.



• One needs to make an important distinction between people who have strong opinions yet are able to work constructively with people and those that aren't. Laws does not have a constructive track record in politics at all, like Winston Peters.

Interesting that there's a common thread in those comments that are unsupportive of Mickey - that he's incapable of achieving anything meaningful because he's far too abrasive to work with others. Little wonder, then, that he attracts support on LawsWatch from people like this:

Anonymous said...
To anon at 8.35pm. Then you stand for office, you tosser. Scared? Laws has beaten everybody he's confronted these past 2 years.
9:58 PM, November 16, 2006

So the hallmark of a successful politician is that he "beats" people and makes opponents "scared"? Not that we've ever met anyone who's actually scared of Mickey - just those who approach a political battle with him as one would an excrement-hurling contest. With Mickey standing down we can only hope anon finds someplace to live where he or she will feel more at home. Sadly, the choices are narrowing as despots everywhere are being overthrown, but we're sure Kim Jong Il has room for someone who considers beating and scaring people to be positive attributes in their companions. If not, contact us and we'll refer you to a competent Dominatrix.

Coming back to our somewhat muted reaction to the "big announcment", it seems the same game is being played out in Christchurch, according to the goss at Molesworth & Featherston, who report that:

The rumble from the semi-South is that Christchurch Mayor Garry Moore is about to rescind his decision not to seek another term, and declare his hand as a candidate again. It is not clear exactly why ... it might be feels he was pushed into the decision in the first place, or more likely he is under pressure from the left who fear a centre right candidate (Bob Parker or George Balani again?) would be more attractive to the conservative instincts in the Garden City than Christchurch Central MP Tim Barnett if he wound up as the left’s first choice.

Refusing to stand for office only to be "reluctantly" dragged back to politics by your supporters is a ploy which goes all the way back to Pompey the Great in 71BC and has been used by hundreds of politicians since, so we won't be writing him out of the Mayoral ballot till nominations close.

Then again, gratuitous trouble is, as Jane Clifton accurately nailed in "Political Animals", Mickey's raison d'etre. How much more fun to sit at the Council table and make gratuitous trouble for your successor, for no other reason than to "prove" how much more effective it was to rule by diktat and intimidation than to try to reach genuine consensus.

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Leaving so soon, Mickey?

It might be our Calvinist leanings, or it might just be years of mistrusting everything Mickey says, but the corks aren't popping just yet here at the LawsWatch Cave following the announcement that Mickey is to be a one term wonder*.

When we first heard talk around town that Dotty had cleaved a sod with a spade we feared worst, but she'd only been digging the dirt at the Splash Centre (which is more than the Chronicle has ever done). No, Mickey was safe, but had decided to throw in the towel because (as every politician who's had to step aside due to anything from unpopularity to mass murder has said) he wanted to spend more time with the family.

But no corks are popping here. For one thing, if a week is a long time in politics then months are, well... even longer. A lot can happen between now and then, including (as one commenter to the previous post has already prophecyed) distraught citizens begging Mickey to return and he - reluctantly, you understand - acquiescing.

Not that we think it likely. Having used Wanganui to rebuild his previously non-existent profile, Mickey has bigger fish to fry.

"Used"? you ask, incredulously. But of course. A predictably redneck talkback host on a station no one listens to making outrageous, insulting, racist and just plain dumb comments to desperately try to win a few more listeners isn't news. A Mayor making those same comments, is. And for all the disingenuous "I wasn't Mayor when I said those things" nonsense, Mickey knows precisely what he's doing.

But more importantly, the bubbly is remaining in the fridge because there's still a long way to go even if Mickey actually keeps one promise and doesn't foist himself on the town again. There are important expenditure decisions to be made, for one thing.

Without the full-on both-barrels spin emanating from Guyton Street in the lead-up to the next election (unless Mickey carries his support for Phillipa Baker-Hogan as his successor over into becoming her campaign manager) the opportunity will be there to have a proper "opening of the books" to get a true picture of Wanganui's burgeoning debt. It might even be a chance to demand that those who'd seek to have your trust vested in them again give a true and accurate accounting of the cost of the various monuments to Mickey that are planned or under way.

Then, and only then, can ratepayers be expected to make rational decisions as to whether they, and their offspring and migrants for generations to come, ought to be committing themselves to even greater debt.

Update (14 November): "Where has the poll gone?" asks a commenter. The blog is programmed to have only the six most recent posts appear on the main page so as to minimise download time. Older posts can be accessed using the menu to the right - dating back to our very first offering, in fact. The poll can still be found here and we'll analyse the results shortly.

* As in, we wonder what the hell you were thinking when you voted, Wanganui.

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Say it isn't so!

Rumours are reaching the Cave - and we emphasise they are only rumours - that the Diva will not be standing again for mayor. No less than half a dozen informants have contacted LawsWatch in the last 24 hours, breathlessly imparting the news (well, the emails read like they'd been written breathlessly, anyway).

Our informants claimed to have sourced their information from "business people in the know", to "someone at the Chron" to "my neighbour who works at Council". A variation on the rumour is that, while abandoning the mayoralty, he'll still stand as a councillor.

Like much of the information which reaches our ears, we're taking it all with a Dead Sea's worth of salt. We find it particularly difficult to believe that Emperor Mickey would be happy to become a mere courtesan in the court of, say, Queen Dotty. But then again, when he's made a mess of things before he's been smart enough to realise that he can do as much - if not more - by lurking in the shadows and pulling the strings of a figurehead too lazy or too stupid to do their own thinking (c.f. NZ First).

At least as likely are two other possibilities:
- our informants are as mad as Mickey; or
- this is a disinformation campaign.

However, given that we've now exceeded the usual trigger point for something to rate a passing mention - we've heard it independently from at least three reasonably credible sources* - we'll dutifully make mention of said rumours and leave it to you, dear reader, to decide whether you attach any credibility to it.

Being Friday afternoon, we're not averse to opening the odd bottle of Pinot Noir and speculating on a post-apocalyptic post-Mickey future. Like, what if an ambitious diVisionite decided that serving under Mickey's chosen successor was more than she could bear and decided to have a tilt at the top job? Would there then be two diVision candidates for the job? Would one be forced from the fold? And what would Dotty do if Mickey failed to endorse her as per their agreement?! A catfight in Guyton Street? Jelly wrestling in (enough! For the love of God, enough! - Ed).

* Credible sources: anyone who manages to correspond using complete sentences, avoids using ALL CAPTALS and, most importantly, puts their name to their emails.

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