Out, Damned Spot

Both main parties are struggling to keep their houses in order.

- Jane Clifton

They seek him here, they seek him there. Or just as possibly, her. PricewaterhouseCoopers and Simpson Grierson seek him/her everywhere.

By now the Nats must wish they’d never launched this interminable pursuit of their own damned elusive Scarlet Pimpernel because it’s clear they’d be better off leaving him/her tactfully masked.

Their quarry is more of a Blue Pimple than the dashing saboteur of literature. The leak of data about National Party leader Simon Bridges’ travel costs – which was about to be made public anyway – was so feeble a feat of derring-do that pure embarrassment, rather than the implied disloyalty against the leader, is probably what’s keeping the Blue Pimple from owning up. Bridges could have shrugged the whole thing off as someone playing silly-buggers, but instead mounted the highest of horses to run the culprit to earth. He convinced himself, against a pile of evidence, that the leaker wasn’t from his own caucus or staff.

Now, this ludicrous affair has generated a potentially devastating cliff-hanger: what if the traitor is someone at the very heart of Team Bridges?

The Opposition leader’s handling of the abrupt leave-taking of frontbencher and close ally Jami-Lee Ross this week has all but outed Ross as the mole.

To the explanation that Ross is taking several months off to deal with a serious personal health issue, Bridges added that it was of a “potentially embarrassing nature”.

This one horribly tactless blurt brings him down off his high horse with a thud. It wasn’t said in spite, but it may as well have been. It pasted a big fat exclamation mark on to Ross’ mystery problem, licensing endless prurient speculation.