Valedictories
I’ll put some video up later today,, but for now here are four stories on retiring MPs
While totally respecting her decision, I am still really sad and cut up about Katherine leaving. Katherine would have been a superb Minister and she is just one of the neatest people you can ever get to meet. I have absolutely no desire to work in Parliament again, but if I did I would want to work for Katherine if she had stayed on.
Katherine, Clem and Mark are all from the socially liberal “wing” of National. National’s strength is that blend of conservatism and liberalism. There is a healthy acceptance that National needs both. The “liberals” don’t want to turn National into a conservative free zone, and neither do conservatives want to have National without its blend of liberalism.
The challenge for classical liberals like myself is to make sure the liberal wing is not so small as to be ineffective or invisible. But luckily both the 2005 and the likely 2008 intakes have or had reasonable proportions of “social liberals”.