Helen Clark insisted the "law of the jungle" phrase in the Guardian newspaper to describe the US-UK decision to invade Iraq was not hers - a claim corroborated by the transcript she distributed at her post-Cabinet press conference on Monday. Guardian journalist Jonathan Freedland, who interviewed Clark in London last week, agreed, explaining in an email that the term "the jungle" was originally his, posed as a question to something she was saying: You mean the jungle? he had said. Clark: "Yes, the jungle. Who wants to go back to the jungle?" "Strictly speaking," says Freedland, "perhaps the phrase in the Guardian story should have appeared thus - the law of 'the jungle' but whatever the finer points of punctuation, the Guardian faithfully reflected the PM's views, and we stand by our account of them."
Sorry, not this week
Act MP Deborah Coddington reports from Cambridge University, where she is on study leave, that part-time New Zealand and British Labour MP Austin Mitchell was due to speak in the Cambridge Union debate on Thursday. Coddington was most amused to hear from the union president that some had been expecting him the previous week. The MP's secretary had thought Mitchell might be able to reschedule a dinner appointment she had with some "minor cog" from New Zealand. She had not realised until later that it was none other than Mitchell's tramping companion and old mate, Prime Minister Helen Clark. And the Cambridge Union waited a week.
Hey, good looking
Standing in for the boss at question time on Wednesday, Justice Minister Phil Goff gave the rote answer to the rote question by Winston Peters - "Does the Prime Minister have confidence in so and so and if so, why?" The minister on trial this day happened to be Margaret Wilson. "Yes, because she is a conscientious and hard-working minister," Goff said, word perfect, then leaned back in Wilson's direction to add a personal touch ... "and good looking." The flattered Wilson, who once referred in an answer to Steve Maharey's good looks, buried her face in her hands.
Punishing midnight feasts
Opposition MPs know how to punish the Government when they are forced to sit through to 5am under extraordinary urgency to pass a bill putting up liquor prices that might otherwise wreck the neatly tailored publicity plans for Budget day. National, Act and New Zealand First MPs gathered in the Noes lobby at midnight to get stuck into a feed of fish and chips and didn't share their steaming chips with the Government.
- compiled by Herald political reporters
<i>Power Game:</i> The 'jungle' story
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