Nice try

The Herald reports:

Two unemployed men arrested after trying to put their meals onto Prime Minister John Key’s bar-tab this week claim Key had offered to shout their meals and then reneged – a claim the Prime Minister’s office has rejected.

Also:

Mr Jellema said his bail conditions prohibited any alcohol, but had only had one beer and had the incident with Key not happened, it would not have been an issue. Mr Boyd said his bail conditions prevented him being drunk in a public place – but he also had only had one beer and subsequent testing had shown minimal alcohol in his system.

If he is already on bail, and has an alcohol prohibition as part of his bail terms, I think we can make some conclusions about their reliability.

It does remind me though of a National Party conference in the 1990s. One of my mates asked for my room number. I deduced he probably wanted to charge his drinks to it, so I gave him the number of the room next door to me.

Later in the night caught up with him, and he boasted how he had charged half a dozen drinks to my room. I then responded that it wasn’t in fact my room, but the one next door to me.

He was still very unconcerned at this point, and casually asked whose room it was. I replied that it was (then Finance Minister) Bill Birch’s. He turned several shades of pale and rushed downstairs to the bar to try and pay for his drinks, and get the charges removed. He correctly concluded that Mr Birch would have been very unimpressed to find my friend’s signature on bar drinks charged to his room!