Jim Hopkins: What will happen when political principles take Flight

Here's a little story you might find interesting.

Once upon a time, there was a chap called Howard Flight. You probably haven't heard of Howie, unless you're a psychic or someone who adduces deep meaning from the disposition of tea leaves at the bottom of a mug. (Not to be confused with John Tamikaze, who's a mug at the bottom.)

But, presuming you're neither psychic nor sadsack, a name like Flight is likely to have you assuming he was Richard Pearse's mechanic or something of that sort.

Except, of course, Richard didn't have a mechanic. Which might explain why his neighbours so lovingly called him "Mad" Pearse.

It's easy to imagine them leaning over a gorse hedge in South Canterbury, smoking their swede pipes and gnawing on a leg of raw mutton as they said to each other, "Oooo, arrrr, I tell thee what, if ol' Mad Pearse wants to claim the honour for the British race of bein' the first man to fly and thereby beating them pesky Wright Brothers whom we haven't even 'eard of at this perrtikular point in toime, he really oughta get a good mechanic, boi heck, boi golly ... (Thoughtful pause) ... How's your turnips, farmer Nigel?"

Now, you might think Kiwi farmers speaking in foreign tongues is a turnip for the books but then again those long-ago agrarian bucologists would've been but a few years in the colonies, so they'd not have lost the accents of the old country.

Which is, coincidentally, where you'd find Mr Flight. And not in the history books, either. He is, in fact, a living, breathing Englishman who has achieved great notoriety lately.

At this point it might help to assure readers that every detail of Mr Flight's unfortunate flightpath is absolutely true. What with our superior moral climate and all, a guarantee of authenticity is probably essential to prevent incredulous Kiwis dismissing the whole saga as a fairytale.

Not that Mr Flight is a fairy, although he is a Conservative, which might be worse. He is also, according to British reports, "a wealthy and successful businessman" (Shame!) and "a great dinner companion" (ring any bells?).

In 1997 Mr Flight was selected as the Conservative candidate for the safe seat of Arundel and South Downs, where the locals regarded him as "plain-speaking, honest and unspun".

A little too plain-speaking, it would seem. You see, Mr Flight was at a dinner late in March (Holy Moly, they have them there, too) where he was recorded (without his knowledge, in this case) saying very indiscreet things.

Before his dinner disclosures, Mr Flight was associated with a Conservative committee investigating ways to reduce taxes by cutting wasteful Government expenditure (Great Scott. Fancy that. The old Poms must have hip-hop tours, international lesbian sports investigations, wananga, America's Cup grants and luxury yacht company handouts just like us - not such queer tossers [sorry] after all.)

Anyway, that aside, this committee apparently identified various painless ways to slash waste without affecting important stuff like health and the plods et al.

And the Conservative leader, Michael Howard, went to great pains to reassure the public about this. He said there was no secret agenda ("'Ullo, 'ullo"); no undeclared conspiracy ("Gor blimey, guv, this is uncanny.") so the British public need have no fear. (They could be like us, in other words.)

Unfortunately, Mr Flood contradicted his leader's soothing words at dinner by saying: "The potential for getting better taxpayer value is a good bit greater than the [committee's] findings which have been sieved for what is politically acceptable."

Translation: There's some unacceptable stuff we're also planning to do.

Well, as soon as Mr Flight's frightful thoughts became public a very strange thing happened: he was mandatorily deselected. That's right. Mr Flight was promptly and officially dumped as a Conservative candidate.

It's incredible. No "infinite forgiveness", no "humanity", not even an opportunity for some Stalinesque "rehabilitation". The man was just sacked. That has to be the most brutal use of a backbone in modern politics.

Quite why Flightie got the flick is a mystery. Perhaps because he was wrong, or disloyal, or possibly because he'd let the cat out of the bag. We'll simply never know.

What we virtuous Kiwis must hope is that Mr F. doesn't hop on a plane, head this way, flush his passport down the dunny and try entering politics here.

Because, if he does, he'll find he can:

* Call his leaders devious and smarmy.

* Accuse those same leaders of deliberately losing an election (and thereby inflicting three or more years of misery on voters for whom they profess to care) simply to get rid of someone they don't like.

* And of having a secret 15-year agenda they don't want anyone to know about.

* And of hating half the population.

And all he'll get is a hug. Oh, and a bollocking.

We owe our media (whom the now-obsequious Mr Tamikaze called "totally useless" and "sycophantic" a debt of gratitude for not drawing the Flight case to our attention. They obviously decided it has no relevance in our more principled context.

Having said that, the Flight affair may nevertheless reveal why our "brightest and best" are fleeing in droves to Britain. Perhaps they've decided that, for all its pollution and grime and all its choking burden of history and suffocating adherence to tradition, the air is still much cleaner over there.