Hooton on the button

I cant say it better that this



The Matthew Hooton Blog

Tuesday, September 9th, 2008
Labour will regret the rude, arrogant and prosecutorial behaviour of Helen Clark’s henchmen Michael Cullen and Russell Fairbrother against Owen Glenn at the Privileges Committee today.
Their behaviour was so shocking that, several times, Mr Glenn was forced to ask the chairman, Simon Power, whether he was on trial.
Cullen and Fairbrother all but publicly confirmed Labour’s smear campaign against Glenn – which Clark refused to disavow in Parliament earlier in the afternoon.
The smear campaign has included private allegations, explicit and/or implicit, that Glenn is a drunk and a philanderer, that he is confused and suffering from a “faulty memory” as a result of being “well into his 70s” – in fact he is 68 – that he is something of a Walter Mitty and even that he has had electroconvulsive shock therapy.
Today, Cullen and Fairbrother were haughty and rude, and treated Mr Glenn like an alleged criminal or mental patient. In particular, they alleged that he mistook Winston Peters for his brother, Wayne. Apparently when Mr Glenn called Winston Peters’ personal cellphone – not even Cullen and Fairbrother denied it was Winston Peters’ phone – it may have been Wayne Peters who answered and impersonated Winston Peters.
The likelihood of this is extremely low, especially as, four minutes later, Winston Peters’ laywer emailed Mr Glenn referring to his conversation with “my client”. Mr Glenn will be furious his honesty and/or competence and/or sanity was challenged by Cullen and Fairbrother under parliamentary privilege, and Mr Glenn really didn’t want to know what to say in response, except that he had “absolutely no doubt” he had spoken to Winston Peters.
But even if the Deputy Prime Minister, Cullen, is right that his Government’s suspended Foreign Minister, Winston Peters, sometime gives his brother, Wayne, his personal cellphone and that Wayne sometimes impersonates Winston, what on earth does that say about this Government?
Does Wayne sometimes flog Winston’s phone and impersonate him when Condi Rice calls? Or the Foreign Ministers of Australia, the UK or China? Should the Prime Minister be concerned that a dodgy Northland lawyer sometimes borrows her Foreign Minister’s private phone and pretends to be him?
If not, it suggest Cullen and Fairbrother were just parroting more Labour lies.
As a result, Glenn will be even more angry at Clark and her henchmen when he fronts up to the media in Auckland tomorrow, apparently to tell even more.





I expect that Glenn has saved the best for last.... The privileges committee had only a narrow terms of reference so no doubt Glenn will like more freedom to say more.

Will it be our own PM who is in the gun today?

Truth has been missing in action whenever Labour talks about this issue. Glenn will put the Truth centre stage today.