Jim’s pretend party

Sam Sachdeva in The Press reports:

Defeated Christchurch mayoral candidate and Wigram MP Jim Anderton will retire from Parliament next year.

Anderton lost to Bob Parker, who retained the mayoralty by a margin of more than 16,000 votes after the Canterbury earthquake. …

He acknowledged his retirement would mean the end of his Progressive Party “in an informal sense”.

There is no Progressive Party. Candidates Josie Pagan and Megan Woods have sought Labour nominations. The members have been encouraged to go to Labour, and there will be no Progressive candidates in 2011.

But Anderton maintains the myth that he is a party leader. Why? Well it means his salary goes from $131,000 to $144,500, and his parliamentary budget gets an extra $100,000.