The tyrant is a child of Pride
Who drinks from his sickening cup
Recklessness and vanity,
Until from his high crest headlong
He plummets to the dust of hope.
Sophocles, Oedipus Rex
Actually, Sophocles aside I’m inclined to agree with Colin Espiner: Winston will simply not resign under any circumstances, Clark cannot sack him without bringing down the government, National are riding too high in the polls to risk anything that might upset their numbers. Winston gets a pass.
But his big weekend with Condi Rice is now a trainwreck. The only sane way for him to handle his press conference was to announce that he was appointing an independant auditor to investigate his trusts and party finances (‘And I am confident they will find no wrongdoing and that will put this matter to rest once and for all’). That’s not his style though and the conference was a catastrophe, with TVNZ political editor Guyon Espiner taking the almost unprecedented step of overtly criticising the foreign minister.
The Dominion-Post will almost certainly lead with fresh revelations tomorrow. Peter’s is scheduled to have a joint conference with Rice this weekend with the number of media questions restricted to four; two from foreign press and two from the locals (the questioners to be decided by ballot). That’s the theory/fantasy anyway – we’ll see how that plays out on the day.
