Who dun it?

Heh NBR today has offered odds on who was the source of the leaked e-mails, and I’m in the running but only at 700:1 as they are sure I would have live blogged me handing the emails over to the SST 🙂

What is most fascinating is the description of Helen Bain as “gorgeous” and “pouting”. Is this a subtle way for an NBR reporter to ask Helen out on a date?

The full article is over the break:

In tray
The National Business Review – 2 September 2005 : 20-02

Don’s email

As the Wellington establishment continues to reel from the news that a political party leader sends and receives email from outside organisations, we offer the odds for some of the possible sources for this year’s most explosive revelation …

Richard Long and Bryan Sinclair: Unlikely. No doubt the “tight two,” as these close friends and political soulmates are sometimes known, had the means. But what could motivate two of the party’s most important lieutenants to leak anybody’s email? Odds: 950-1

Nicky Hager: Doubtful. The city’s wealthiest conspiracy theorist and environmental saint would never have agreed to the sinful waste of photocopying hundreds of pages on paper that weren’t even recycled! Odds: 10,000-1

David P Farrar: National party insider, computer man extraordinaire and the man who with a wave of the paw has the authority to “slow down” the entire internet. But the chances are slim that such a close friend of the party’s leadership team would ever let the side down in such a cavalier fashion. What’s more, it’s virtually inconceivable that David P Farrar would be the leak and not live-blog any meeting he had with Sunday Star-Times reporter Ruth Laugesen. Odds: 700-1

Helen Clark, Trevor Mallard, Michael Cullen, Mike Williams, Mike Munro, et al: Had no hand in the revelations. Would never have encouraged such dirty tricks. Knew nothing. Learned about it at the same time as everybody else. Were absolutely shocked. Only realised much later that the affair dovetailed with their own party’s campaign theme. Honestly, guv. Truly. Odds: 2:1

Jon Johansson: Academic, political commentator and talented cigarette smoker. But could Jon have summoned the inner resolve to contain the grief he continues to feel, over the party leader’s treatment of his good friend Simon Power, long enough to become a genuine leaker? And why would he go to the trouble of leaking email anyway when he can just turn up on television or on National Radio every other night and achieve the same effect as a “neutral” election commentator? Odds: 15:1

David Lange: True, Big Dave is no longer with us but he always promised this would be an election where he would make his presence felt. What better way than returning from the dead, floating through the empty corridors of power and causing the wind to blow a stack of emails out the window and on to the street below? Stranger things have been known to happen at Parliament. Just ask Tim Grafton or Matthew Hooton! Odds: 3-1

Helen Bain: Gorgeous, pouting political reporter known to take a keen interest in politics. Not really a strong contender, but worth mentioning all the same in that it allows us all another opportunity of looking again at that wonderful photograph. Odds: 300-1

David Skilling: All’s fair in lobbying and war. Odds: 10-1

The office temp: “You know, the one with the gruff voice, broad shoulders who everybody thought was wearing a wig and who worked as the tea lady just for a day, printed a whole lot of stuff out in between breaks and then never came back.” Odds: 5-1