In a week when the Government is on the ropes in the polls, and every promise they ever made is either an abject failure on delivery or has disastrously produced the opposite of what was intended, the National Party has still managed to show voters that they have tits for hands.
Schoolboy bullying 22 years in the past should be really easy to deal with, but somehow the dolts running National, from the former president down have made it look really difficult.
Sam Uffindell has had numerous opportunities to address the issue before someone with an axe to grind weaponised it. His first mistake was the grovelling apology nine months before he put his hand up to be a candidate. That just looks like a ham-fisted attempt to mitigate this ever coming out, and it turns out that it was both ham-fisted and futile.
He had another opportunity to put this behind him during the candidate selection process, after the pre-selection committee, headed by Peter Goodfellow, were made aware of it.
He had three speeches during the candidate selection process where he could have front-footed this and made the case that he was an arsehole at school who did some terrible things, but has since turned his life around. Voters love a bad guy made good story if it is pitched right.
He then had more chances to address this during the by-election campaign, especially when asked alongside all the other candidates, what his biggest regret was. Instead, he used a pathetic example of regretting not coming back to New Zealand earlier. The Act candidate revealed when asked the same question that as a teenager he had a drink driving conviction. But Uffindell missed a prime opportunity to get his skeleton out early in the process.
Look, school boys will be school boys. Bullying is still rife in schools and more so back then, 22 years ago. Uffindel may well have been a snotty nosed rich boy thug at Kings College, but since then he has led an exemplary life. That really should have been the end of it, but for the useless crisis management displayed by the National Party. Uffindell has also been poorly advised. He’s new to this game and whoever has been advising him has really big tits for hands.
When this story broke National should have immediately dispatched him to walk the Milford track or sent him overseas to help Ukrainian orphans. Something where the media can’t get to him so that they will be forced to find something else irrelevant to moralise about.
Instead, they put a political tyro up in front of EVERY media outlet to allow them to feast on his political carcass. The result was every bit as predictable and successful as Prince Andrew’s decision to talk to the media.
That’s on National and Christopher Luxon, not on Uffindell.
Instead of focussing on the abject failure of this Government and their latest poll slump, National has been fighting fires of their own making, and even worse they’ve been applying liberal quantities of gasoline to try to put them out.
National have displayed, yet again, their poor candidate selection processes, and their poor crisis management.
Do I think Uffindell should resign? Not even remotely. Labour can hardly talk when they have sexual assault and bullying issues in their own ranks from recent history, and the Speaker of the House has an assault conviction, and Willie Jackson is a minister who made a complete twat of himself over the Roast Busters case, not to mention another minister who was a wife beater.
But I do think that the Board of the National Party should tell Peter Goodfellow, who presided over the pre-selection, that they no longer want to see his face anywhere near the party. Matthew Hooton is far ruder than me on the issue.
Christopher Luxon too should hang his head in shame for letting a newbie MP get hung, drawn and quartered for what is in all reality a stupid schoolboy act that in my day would have got you caned and that would have been the end of it.
The Media Party, of course, will do what they always do, make a mountain out of a molehill. But remember they are the corrupt and bribed shills for this Government. Setting your new MP loose into the media was just stupid. That’s on Luxon and no one else.
National though, really needs to get on the phone to Jason Ede. None of this stuff happened when he dug into the past of candidates. National’s selection processes are wanting as well. When issues like this arise the candidate should be sat down and have his nuts kicked until he tells you absolutely everything he’s ever done. Uffindel did squeal to this, and everything that happens after he squealed is no longer his responsibility. That is on Peter Goodfellow and Christopher Luxon.
If I was Sam Uffindell right now, I’d pack a bag for some winter tramping in Southland or help hand out aid in Ukraine for the next month.
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