The word around Tauranga is that Lester Gray is really annoyed that some people think that he is having a mental health breakdown.
Which, when you think about it is rather strange considering that he told the world that he was suffering from depression on Facebook.
It is also strange that he seems to have forgotten about his pretence for standing down as president which he advised to the board of NZ First, via his lawyer.
Gray stood down as president in mid-September on medical leave, according to an email sent to from the NZ First board.
Jude Patterson, wife of MP Mark Patterson, stepped in as acting-president.
“The Board of New Zealand First has accepted a medical leave request from the President, Mr Lester Gray, and has appointed Mrs Jude Patterson as Acting President until Mr Gray recovers,” the email read.
“The Board members extend our best wishes to Mr Gray for a speedy recovery.”
NZ First leader Winston Peters was unable to comment as he is travelling. He declined to comment when asked about the medical leave last month.
Of course, we know the real reason for his resignation and standing down was that he was about to be held to account for his bullying behaviour in a party disciplinary matter; this also seems to have escaped his memory.
It is rather strange to deny things put in motion by one’s own hands. Still, it is now proven that he has misled media and I guess the next thing that will be disproved will be the fact that Lester Gray was never responsible, nor was it part of his role, to sign off the accounts of NZ First.
Lester Gray should stop trying to be the deep throat of NZ First and concentrate on working out how to get his wife to forgive him. The word on the street is that the new flash car wasn’t seen as nearly enough cock tax for trying to secure his girlfriend a job working in NZ First as the general manager. That inconvenient fact is yet another thing that he has failed to tell the media when dripping his poison into their ears.
Lester Gray is discovering that when you are economical with the truth, pesky facts can bite one on one’s lying derriere.