Gerry Brownlee would do well to understand the layout of airports considering he'll be visiting a lot of them in the coming months, says Barry Soper. Photo / Sarah Ivey
Something's happened to the man who was once affectionately, but accurately described, by Jenny Shipley as bombastic.
He's clearly had a conversion on the road to the Foreign Office to become our top diplomat.
Gerry Brownlee may not have widespread popularity out among the great unwashed where he's been known
to call a spade a front end loader, but within the political beltway he's liked, one of the more popular figures with his colleagues with his cutting but keen sense of humour.
But Foreign Minister isn't a job you'd point your finger at and say Gerry's a natural fit for it. He's fiercely loyal though, as was shown when there was a ruckus at a Shipley campaign rally back in 99 when he acted in a way that seemed to come naturally, like a bouncer physically bundling a noisy protester out of a hall, ending up in court and being ordered to pay the heckler eight and a half grand for his discomfort.
And with his current gig, Bill English would do well to keep him away from Finland, considering he once, with his tongue unnoticeably embedded in his cheek, referred to Finns as uneducated, unemployed murderers who don't respect women. It was in response to Labour's idea that this economy should be modelled on Finland's. It moved the Finnish Foreign Minister to muse that Brownlee probably doesn't even know where Finland is and perhaps it's better it stays that way.
