KEY POINTS:
I do a little weekly yak on Newstalk ZB with Larry Williams where I presume I am shuffled on as the Right-Wing Sheila to balance Tim Watkin, who was deputy editor of the Listener when it was the socialist house journal.
Be warned, it doesn't take much to
get Right-Wing Sheila status - simply mention the unmentionable occasionally: the welfare state, say, or Margaret Thatcher.
The problem is, Right-Wing Sheila status makes people think I must be a National supporter. They'd be wrong. I have about as much in common with the blue-blazer, born-to-rule, family-values type of Nat as I do with Heather Simpson. And I don't have much in common with those rugger playing, redneck Nats either.
If there is one person who reminds me of everything I can't stand about National it is Jim Bolger - even before he became a turncoat. Labour choosing Bolger as the Fat Controller for its re-nationalised trainset was clever: it may remind voters of what a bunch of power-hungry whores the Nats were in their last incarnation in government in both 1993 and 1996.
Historians seem keen to reinterpret Mr Potato Head as a kind of loveable Forrest Gump or Chauncey Gardiner of New Zealand politics. Uh, no. Our idea of "a great leader" is a cow cocky who left school at 15, probably couldn't find Indonesia on a map, thinks Sartre is the name of a scent, doesn't speak any languages but can do an embarrassing accent, and has so little sophistication in his political thinking he doesn't even have a robust enough world view to say "no" to heading up the railways he formerly sold.
Pragmatic, savvy, "The Great Helmsman", is how former Labour minister and historian Michael Bassett described Bolger in 1997. In an interview with the NZ Herald's Claire Trevett last year, Bolger said he wouldn't talk about politics. Ex-squeeze me? What does he think we are interested in hearing him talk about: hem lengths?
The only conclusion to draw is New Zealanders' anti-intellectualism is so acute we really feel most comfortable being governed by thick people or bullies.
Bloggers had less complimentary things to say this week, with a popular view that Bolger should be stripped of his party membership. The average National member now feels the same warmth towards Jim Bolger as UK Tories felt towards Ted Heath - that is to say almost none. (Heath is known as Traitor Heath by many Tories. Curiously, in later life, Heath's peculiar accent, with its "strangulated" vowels, also attracted much comment.)
If you had any doubt that Bolger was a plonker, ask yourself why he would cosy up to Labour just as they are about to get booted from office.
"No one will take his party membership off him because no one can be that bothered. But where former leaders McLay, Shipley and Brash are all held in considerable affection, Bolger is not and probably never will be now," one National Party insider told me.
To be fair, Bolger's rise and rise as a so-called corporate statesman since leaving the Beehive probably owes as much to the small-town Kiwi directorship club as it does to politics. You know how this works: if you get an appointment to one board you are considered to have a stamp of approval, regardless of your competence, and further board appointments inevitably follow.
The National Party's website is still flattering about Bolger, crediting him with winning the largest majority in New Zealand's parliamentary history in 1990. That's generous, considering Bolger famously gave a Bono-style "We are the world" speech criticising his own party which struck quite the wrong note at the otherwise uplifting 70th anniversary National Party dinner - with this Right-Wing Sheila, at least.
Needless to say, I won't be holding my breath for any cushy directorships if the Nats get in.
