Sideswipe

Helen Simpson and Bill Puru (story below).

Act's Auckland Central candidate Helen Simpson must have won herself a few votes when she beat Maori Party Maungakiekie electorate candidate Bill Puru in a jug-sculling competition at Auckland University on Wednesday. The petite Simpson, herself a politics student, and the larger-than-life Puru were the only candidates to take on the student-style challenge issued by the students' association education vice-president Xavier Goldie. Labour's Judith Tizard and the Greens' Nandor Tanczos wisely stayed out of it all, as did independent candidate and pub owner Thomas Forde and National's Wayne Mapp.

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Tauranga's electorate scrap has left a trail of confusion in its wake. On Campbell Live on Wednesday night know-it-all political commentator Michael Laws was asked about Winston Peters' chances. He said Bob Clarkson and Peters had probably both been damaged by the debacle and then offered his expert opinion on who might benefit. "It's going to hurt them and I think Mr Nash would probably be the repository of that dismay." John Campbell asked: "Can he [Nash] win?" To which Laws replied: "Yes, he can, but he's actually going to have to say what I've done for Tauranga and what I'm going to do and I haven't heard that yet." Could that be because Stuart Nash is standing in Epsom? Small but important point that obviously passed Laws and Campbell by.

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Rodney Hide canvassing for the 2008 election? A reader writes: "I was baffled to see Rodney outside my school on Tuesday waving and smiling happily at poor, unsuspecting juniors, who looked slightly afraid as they tried to cross Owens Rd, when those old enough to vote were inside sitting exams".

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Something to bear in mind this weekend ... "The government consists of a gang of men and women, exactly like you and me. They have, taking one with another, no special talent for the business of government; they have only a talent for getting and holding office. Their principal device to that end is to search out groups who pant and pine for something they can't get and to promise to give it to them. Nine times out of 10 that promise is worth nothing. The 10th time is made good by looting A to satisfy B. In other words, the government is a broker in pillage and every election is sort of an advance auction sale of stolen goods." - H.L. Mencken