Coddington attacks Hide

Wow. I guess it is no surprise,but Deborah Coddington seems to really not like Rodney Hide, as the fomer Caucus colleague lets rip:

This week was very exciting for me because on Tuesday, after 12 months of abstinence, we finally got a television, just in time to watch the news with Glenn’s appearance before the committee in Wellington.

It’s a fabulous telly – big, flat screen and beautifully crisp, coloured pictures – but with such precision also comes shock.

The first thing we saw was Rodney Hide, just behind Owen Glenn, nodding, frowning, or shaking his head at committee members.

“Can we send the telly back now?” I asked my husband.

“I’ve suddenly remembered why I didn’t like watching.”

So the dislike is so strong, she hates even seeing him on TV?

I mean, it’s bad enough waking to Morning Report’s obsession with Hide’s Joe McCarthy-like allegations, but at least you can’t see him.

Then she compares him to Senator McCarthy. Never mind that if it were not for Winston’s complaint we would have never learnt from Owen Glenn that Winston solicted the $100,000 himself.

One year without television and suddenly he looks, to me, remarkably like Lockwood Smith. Do they share a personal trainer?

If anyone thinks Deborah is making a compliment, you are mistaken.

A cynic would say Hide snaffled a front-row seat to piggyback Glenn’s television coverage, but that’s unfair. The poor chap’s obviously hard of hearing and vision-impaired, and needs a forward position to understand all the proceedings, in case his pals Geoff, Sean or Duncan call for comment.

But someone could teach him sign language, or make a television series, Signing with the Stars, so poor Rodney needn’t camp outside the committee room for hours to bag the best seat.

I would have thought a former MP would know this. Rodney did not have to queue up at all. All MPs have the right to attend a committee as an observer, and they can just go in, when everyone else was queued up in advance. I know this for I was at the front of the queue and Rodney did not turn up until quite a bit later, and just went in, as did the other MPs.

On Wednesday night, when Winston Peters fronted to try to rebut Glenn’s evidence, there was Hide again, looking a little less chipper, but by this time even my horse felt sorry for him – clearly Hide hadn’t left his seat since Tuesday.

A bit like the urban-mythical one-arm bandit players at SkyCity Casino who don’t leave their stools for a comfort stop, Hide was looking desperate, cold and wasting away.

Umm no. Ask any journalist if Rodney has been looking any of those things. Could not be further from reality.