Get back to broadcasting, Pam – telling the press to piss off won’t get policy into the headlines

“Great news, people – it looks like I won’t have to wave my undies.”

Alf remembers the potty-mouthed Pam Corkery (and not too fondly) from the days when she was a Member of Parliament for the Anderton Mob and rejoiced when she gave it away to go back to broadcasting.

She should have stuck to broadcasting and not taken another crack at politicking as press secretary for the Internet Party’s leader, Laila Harre.

She was an Alliance list MP and a colleague of Harre back in those days for just one term, from 1996 to 1999. Then she quit.

We must suppose the only politicians with whom she became acquainted during those three years were greenies and pinkos, because – as the Herald reminds us today:

In her 1999 book, Pam’s Political Confessions, she said, “Politicians are, by and large, far more self-deluding, devious, bloated, insecure, egocentric w****** than I had feared.”

She certainly did not exchange pleasantries with Alf at that time, to find there are politicians who do not meet her disparaging description.

Some stuff is best read for laughs, including advice to take the Internet Party seriously

Sadly, he is not on the Mana Internet list.

Alf enjoys humour so was immediately tempted to look for the laughs that were bound to be extracted from a Herald item under the headline:

John Armstrong: Internet Mana best taken seriously

Armstrong is a political writer for whom Alf might have a higher regard were he to take some note of the Eketahuna North member’s words of wisdom, which flow regularly in speeches in the House, on the hustings and to mates in the Eketahuna Club, but are never recorded by the aforementioned political writer.

This lack of an appreciation for powerful and well-considered rhetoric means Alf reads Armstrong only for the chuckles.

A marriage of mana and money makes a moaning minnie of – guess who? Yep – Sue

And so the decision has been made.

The Internet Party and Mana Party have teamed up for this year’s election.

Alf and his fellow Nats are feeling seriously unthreatened.

Hone Harawira will be top dog in this odd coupling – he will have top billing on the alliance’s party list.

Mana has given up the number two spot on their combined list to the Internet Party’s leader, who will be named tomorrow (or so we are assured).

This is all too much for dear old Sue Bradford to stomach. She has spat the dummy – as she warned she would – and quit the Mana Party.