Barry Soper: Labour's not talking like a loyal partner

Andrew Little. Photo: Mark Mitchell

Opinion

Well they've always been the bridesmaids and never the bride, essentially because they've never been seen as attractive enough.

And even now Labour's not talking like a loyal partner, with Andrew Little declaring before the ink had even dried on their prenuptial that it wasn't a monogamous relationship, which is nothing short of, well slutty.

But Little and Metiria Turei, both lawyers in a previous life, he for the trade unions and she as an anarchist, a former candidate for the McGillicuddy Serious Party and then for the Legalise Cannabis Party before becoming a corporate lawyer, strode confidentially into the impressive wood panelled, Old Legislative Council Chamber to announce their betrothal to the wildly applauding apparatchiks.

Their Memorandum of Understanding, is more correctly a memo of misunderstanding, taking Labour right back to the perception the great unwashed had of it when Little won the leadership, that it's once again running the red flag up the mast, something the new leader's been working hard to dispel.

For The Greens it's more understandable, it finally gives them a firm foothold on the political ladder, with the rungs possibly taking them into the Cabinet room, something they've always been denied, more vehemently when Helen Clark was the head girl.

National's campaign architect Stephen Joyce was immediately swyping his iPhone on hearing the announcement, tweeting that with Labour handing The Greens a rose, does that make Winston Naz?

Well Peters was beating his gums to journos, sounding like the cracked record he used to be when he banged on incessantly about being happy just being the MP for Tauranga. Now he's the bridge builder in Northland, as a sitting MP again, he'll have more muscle to flex at next year's election and all the polls are telling us he'll be in the box seat to announce the winner, which he again insists, he most certainly won't be announcing this side of the election.

Winston Peters has never made any secret of his distaste for The Greens, calling them a bunch of extremists before the last election. Any suggestion that he'd share power with them was described by him as farcical.

But then anything's possible with MMP politics.

If you mix red paint with green you get brown and Peters has after all been described as the blowfly of New Zealand politics!