Welcome back to 'The Letter'

It may seem sad to 'miss' a political news letter - but Richard Prebble's is a very good read from the sidelines. A little less howling and nashing of teeth than on the various political blogs.

I also like to think he is fairly impartial (especially when I agree with him):

It is corrupt

Brash is mistaken to claim that if Clark repays then it is not corruption. That is like saying if the burglar returns the stolen goods it is not theft. Clark's claim that Labour's misspending is OK because the Auditor-General signed off the public accounts after previous elections is the Enron defence. It is like saying to the referee; 'I have been punching him in every ruck so you can't penalise me now'. Every fraudster would love to be able to say, "It is not fraud because the auditor signed off the accounts".

This weeks Letter also has a couple of excerpts from the new Prebble book; including this line about how David Lange made his final exit from the Labour Party Caucus:

"David often left cabinet, caucus and other meetings. He had a low boredom threshold, and found conflict distressing. He also used to slip out for a fag. So when he slipped out we were not at first concerned. It was Michael Bassett who noticed the Prime Minister wasn't there. We tried to workout his last contribution and calculated he had been gone for more than forty minutes. We realised David Lange was not coming back."

If anyone feels like buying and sending it over flick me an email and I will send you the address ;-)