Deborah Coddington: Our man in London's a laugh

For a parliamentarian who lasted 38 years, Jonathan Hunt received remarkably favourable press. His only scandal - $30,000 for one year's taxi rides - indicates he was either impeccably behaved or did nothing.

Tom Scott wrote that the only sound coming from Hunt's bedroom at night was the noise of chocolates being unwrapped - though he did defy the Chinese in 2002 by refusing to remove a painting in Parliament by an artist who happened to be a member of Falun Gong.

Now he's in London, fast becoming a parody of himself with his pretentious pontificating as our High Commissioner to the United Kingdom, Ambassador to Ireland and High Commissioner to Nigeria.

He boasts he has saved New Zealand House from the clutches of British bad taste by personally overseeing its renovation and catering menu.

And that's not all. The nasty New Zealand Treasury had plans to do "something else" with the allegedly "beloved" 18-storey, 1960s eyesore on The Haymarket, but thanks to Prime Minister Helen Clark (says Jonathan) Kiwis get to keep a building they've probably never heard of, and care less about.

Yes, the view from the rooftop is spectacular but this is arguably the ugliest building in London; selling it and leasing back the space we occupy would help both our economic and architectural bottom lines.

Hunt's a pedant - spell his first name incorrectly and you're in for the high jump. But when fellow Act MP Heather Roy and I entered Parliament in 2002, Hunt confused our names for nearly four months despite the glaring differences in our appearance. It was a sloppiness Hunt himself would never have tolerated and was only terminated when Roy and I, fed up with being laughed at, dared to embarrass him over it.

Nonetheless, Hunt was affectionately known as "the Father of the House" or, less kindly, "the Minister for Wine and Cheese". Perhaps because as Speaker he oversaw payment of MPs' perks and living arrangements, few were game to challenge him. Winston Peters was an exception.

Five years ago, Hunt threatened to evict New Zealand First MP Doug Woolerton from his Bowen House office if he didn't stop smoking.

It was vintage red-rag-to-a-bull for Peters who stage-angrily declared that the threat would be defied, pointing out to the confused that Hunt was only the Speaker, "not God". Peters went on to accuse the Speaker of turning Parliament into a "red light district on a bad night" because smokers were forced out to Lambton Quay.

Combining wrath with humour, Peters took a delicious swipe at Hunt: "What if I put out a parliamentary edict on overeating - it's the same sort of arrogance".

Hunt, if he reads this, will be pained. He takes the mildest criticism to heart and lapses into sulky defence. He was reported last week as having stopped his $300-a-year donation to the Kelston Boys' High history prize, instead making a one-off donation to a new auditorium.

When someone accused him of being a "meanie", Hunt described the complaint as "almost harassment" and "just political". Of course it's political. As a Labour MP for 38 of his 66 years, who was given a sinecure in London by his own party, all his movements and statements are political. And just why Hunt so badly wanted the London posting is a mystery to those who remember him saying, back in 2001, that New Zealand should become a republic.

True to form, Hunt was puzzled and offended at the fuss when he enquired about a British pension. As the late Rod Donald remarked at the time, the incident was "personally embarrassing", given his six-figure diplomatic salary and generous parliamentary super. Gerry Brownlee said he, too, was embarrassed; the British would laugh at us for sending a "hard-up pensioner to London to be our High Commissioner".

But Hunt has only himself to blame. How very clever of him to wander incognito around the Tory Party's annual conference and send the information back to New Zealand that "this guy David Cameron's gonna do all right." Our Man in London proudly has his "eyes and ears open".

Memo to OMIL: New Zealanders read the British papers on the internet often before the Brits - and certainly the Right Honourable Jonathan Hunt - have rubbed the sleep from their eyes. We stopped relying on surface mail for our news shortly after Mr Hunt was Postmaster General.

Hunt's self-congratulations go on and on. The All Blacks have him to thank, apparently, for securing an audience with the Queen. He professes to work "really very hard" at meeting people, collecting their business cards and adding them to his database.

And as for his lame excuse for sitting in his warm car during a wet London Anzac Day service: he didn't want the Queen to see him in a dripping wet suit - tell that to the boys and girls who laid down their lives in horrific conditions when you were a nipper, Mr Hunt, so you could enjoy the riches generated by the democratic freedom they defended.