John Key's claim that politicians are more blunt and less diplomatic in their language when in private is true and hardly surprising.
It's also a convenient way of saying he may have meant what he said to Act's John Banks in the teapot tape before the election, but it could have been phrased in a much friendlier way.
But the fact that Key's alleged comments about New Zealand First supporters could be interpreted in different ways has led him to do something else that politicians do regularly: apologise for any offence that may have been taken.
Yesterday's anonymous publishing of the recording on a file-sharing site seemed calculated to trump Key's first major speech of the year, and to give the tape further oxygen as Parliament prepares to sit for the first time this year, on February 7.
But Labour will be wary that the public largely sided with the PM's view at the time that it was of no interest to anyone but the media.