Armstrong on Goff

John Armstrong writes:

You know it is a cold day in hell when Phil Goff declines an invitation to speak on the radio.

Few politicians more overtly hunger for media coverage than the Labour leader. So Goff’s no-show on yesterday’s Morning Report has to be seen as an admission that the Richard Worth affair has ended up biting him.

The week started with Key very much on the back foot, so it reminds us how apt that saying about how long a week is in politics is.

Goff essentially used Choudary as a vehicle to attack Key. That would have been fine had Choudary’s identity not become public. But it was inevitable it would. Goff’s case was undermined by the huge discrepancy between the image he painted of Choudary and the reality.

He intimated she was some low-level Labour Party member who had become confused and traumatised by Worth’s alleged advances. The actual person is highly active in the party with enough self-confidence to seek nomination to become a candidate for Parliament and tell Worth firmly where to go.

Armstrong is not the only journalist who thinks that Goff painted a misleading picture of Choudary.

It is that disjunction which belies Goff’s claim to have been “totally upfront”. Quite why he thought the gap between image and reality was not a problem will be severely taxing the minds of his colleagues.

And Key actually made a couple of stupid mistakes which should have allowed this to be a clear victory for Labour – but Goff blundered.

Meanwhile, questions have been mounting about why, if Goff was alarmed by Worth’s alleged behaviour, it took him so long to alert the Prime Minister to what Worth was doing.

Also why Choudary talked to Goff long before Choudary says the texts turned allegedly inappropriate.

None of this absolves Worth.

Absolutely.  Even if it was a “honey trap” (and personally I am not convinced it was – mainly because it was so incompetently managed), one should know better than to fall for it.

A properly functioning democracy would see such allegations put in front of an independent inquiry post haste. That is where Goff should have focused his attention.

Well the allegation that Worth promised board appointments in exchange for a relationship is arguably a criminal act – the same sort of act that Taito Philip Field is in court for.

Goff and Choudary could take their allegations to the Police to have them fully investigated. The Police may be able to retrieve the deleted text messages.