Lyndon Hood: Satirists Urge Winston Not To Resign

Dear Right Hon.,

I write to you today on a matter of urgent public importance. I know that you are facing great pressure now and will no doubt face more in the future.

The risks could not be more grave. There has been talk of the end of your political career. We urge you not to let this happen. If it does, what in the name of all that's holy will we write about?

I'm sure everyone involved wants a swift end to these sordid proceedings. At least, I suspect several of those involved do. But you must not take the easy way out. My message is simple:

Do not resign!

The news-website-based satire industry needs you!

Even since the tragic loss of Don Brash, our one-ring political circus, full of backflippers, dead-fish swallowers and any number of wannabe ringmasters has had only one lead clown.

It's not that other politicians aren't risible, but you have reliably been a truly, inherently ludicrous MP. And now, just when your country needs you the most, you are under attack.

And it's not even really about what happened to all those bits of money. Well, it kind of is really about that, but if we're talking about dodgy party financing then people who live in parliament shouldn't throw stones.

Admittedly, you have spent years decrying just these kinds of financial shenanigans, and now you've been called on it. Although, come to think of it, the hypocrisy isn't that unusual round here either. Especially coming from you.

Which is kind of my point.

The man who says he'll turn down the baubles of office during a campaign that plays on jingoistic xenophobia and then becomes Foreign Minister; the man who demands journalists resign if they're proved wrong and, when they're proved right, repeats the demand; the Minister of a major sporting industry who doesn't accept the referee's call; the former Treasurer who thinks giving money to charity is restitution for wrongly getting it from the taxpayer; the former Treasurer who gets confused about who paid his court costs award - you practically write it yourself.

I salute you. You are a natural provocation to ridicule, you make it so easy; you have been the training wheels for a generation of political joculators.

You have achieved that complex and nuanced kind of paranoia where you manage to act irrationally even allowing for the way they are all out to get you. And as the saying goes, just because you're paranoid doesn't mean you're not also a raving narcissist.

Furthermore, you have brought on your coat-tails some of our most ridiculous modern parliamentarians. I look forward to a future where you voters - the KKK and Norman Bates' mum and so on - continue to be represented in Parliament with you at the helm, as roundly derided as you have been in the past,

For the sake of our country, you must stay.

And let's face it, you thrive on this stuff. Being hounded by a conspiracy of the powers that be merely for being financially shonky or a rotten human being or whatever gets you votes.

So keep that chin up! If this goes on much longer you could get even more MPs. I would, professionally speaking, look forward to that!

While I can't promise that the satire industry your presence fosters will make a huge contribution to the fledgling knowledge economy, it can at least mitigate the effects of the booming idiocy sector. And frankly, I'm saving for a house.

So lets have some of that Olympic spirit - the last few yards may be the hardest, but you can't stop now just when you're about to achieve gold.

Pure, comedy gold.

Yours,
The People of New Zealand.

P.S. Please find enclosed a two dollars. Shh!

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