Bugger... scripty goodness to follow.

Even though I’m a Catholic, honesty forces me to admit that just as the devil has the best tunes, the Prods can lay claim to two of the glories of English prose — the King James Bible and the Book of Common Prayer.

As the putrid farce that is Winston Peters grinds on, I’m reminded of these words millions of Anglicans recite every day:

ALMIGHTY and most merciful Father; We have erred, and strayed from thy ways like lost sheep. We have followed too much the devices and desires of our own hearts. We have left undone those things which we ought to have done; And we have done those things which we ought not to have done; And there is no health in us.

Or as we Papists say, when we’re kicking it old school: Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.

And where Winston Peters is concerned there’s a hell of a lot of maxima culpa to go around.

I don’t have the time — or the grandmaster Sudoku-solving mind — to cut through the passive-aggressive fog that Peters and his consigliere Brian Henry have been pumping out in recent weeks. [And as I recorded this last Thursday, little did I know the freak had only just begun - CR]

But I owe you an apology for my part in getting us here.

In 1996, I voted for National in the rather naïve belief that Jim Bolger wouldn’t go into coalition with a man he’d described in the House(and accurately, in my view) as the leader of a “racist party”. And it looks like Helen Clark is doing it all over again. [Again - I plead trumped by event I couldn't have made up, let alone predicted.]

So, yes, I didn’t vote for Winston Peters or his personality cult. But most of us have voted for parties whose leaders were quite happy to whore away their principles for power.

I also confess to having treated Peters like a joke, when his opportunistic pandering to fear, anxiety and flat out xenophobia among the most vulnerable was anything but.

And worse of all, there were times when I just cynically shrugged my shoulders and decided that if people voted for him (not enlightened people like us, naturally) then we all got exactly what they deserved. That’s not only glib, but fundamentally contemptuous toward the whole idea of democracy.

W.C. Fields wrote: “You can’t cheat an honest man.” He has a point. But demagogues flourish because honest men leave undone those things we should do; and we doe those things which we ought not. Perhaps honest men cheat themselves.

Mea culpa.

Sounds as if one cannot vote without actively supporting a party prepared to sell out...