Tapu Misa: And suddenly these politicians are men of the people

Poor Rodney Hide. All that feverish scandal-busting hasn't much improved his party's fortunes, which are languishing at 2.8 per cent in the polls.

No wonder Act is now branding itself as the party for working New Zealand - "who else is standing up for the workers?" - rather than the party of the rich. So, that's poor Rodney Hide to you voters ("My father was a truck driver, for Pete's sake"), not well-off Rodney Hide, resident of Epsom.

Thus, the fact that Act wants to cut the business and top personal tax rate to 25c in the dollar is not so it can put more money into the pockets of the rich. The wealthiest 10 per cent of Kiwis hold more than 50 per cent of the country's total household wealth, so why would they want more? No, Act really just wants to put more money in workers' pockets so the guy earning $40,000 a year can take home another $35.86 a week.

Which is a good thing, obviously, but as that piddling amount still won't make it possible for the average punter to save enough for the deposit on an Auckland shed before she retires, I'm looking forward to Act campaigning for the workers to get bigger salary increases. Say, along the lines of the 25 per cent pay rises that most executives averaged last year.

Some people might see this as shameless electioneering - there being not enough people on the rich list to get them past the 5 per cent threshold - but I say good on them for trying to get in touch with those "everyday people".

This being election year, the Don is already off the starter's block. Anxious to prove that he is not a one-hit wonder, he began the year campaigning for more referendums and giving the Bash to MMP (a bit ungrateful, if you ask me, since he owes his exalted position in politics to proportional representation). But fair go. The People must be heard.

And if you can't come off looking like one of them ("My father was a Presbyterian minister for Pete's sake" doesn't resonate in quite the same way), you can at least give voice to the things that really tick them off. Like the bloody treaty and that perennial favourite - welfare bludgers (who clearly don't count as everyday people).

It seems some people are born to be ordinary; others have it thrust upon them. Claiming connections in high places just isn't de rigueur anymore. No one wants to be seen as a privileged boy, or gal. Which is why Deborah Coddington wants us to know that she buys her clothes from op-shops (though it only leaves one wishing she'd leave the bargains for people who can't afford to shop anywhere else).

Of course, if you can't fake humility you can always lay claim to humble roots. Even in Tonga where the royal family reigns supreme over Parliament and just about any money-making enterprise, getting on side with The People still matters.

Ask the former Auckland lawyer Clive Edwards, who was fired as the kingdom's Minister of Police last year and is now on the campaign trail to get himself elected as one of nine people's representatives in the kingdom's elections in March.

I know a certain degree of self-delusion is a requirement for politics, but Edwards' about-face in the face of an election is worthy of admiration, not to say highly entertaining.

In his eight years in the Cabinet - a position he was appointed to by the King, without the bother of an election - Edwards wielded power with a heavy fist, earning himself the sobriquet of "the hangman". He operated a Tongan Special Branch of the police, brought costly criminal and libel cases against journalists - including a particularly infamous one for "inciting" him to anger - and was one of the chief architects of draconian moves to curb free speech and media freedom.

But now this "enemy of the common people", as one reader described him, has reinvented himself as a would-be people's champion, promising to release Tongans from the royal family's choke-hold on government.

Edwards' claims last week, in Matangi Tonga, that Crown Prince Tupoutoa had fired him on suspicion of plotting a coup and was responsible for the hugely unpopular anti-media bills, have led to a revealing and bitchy exchange of letters between the two.

Edwards wasn't just a liar, wrote HRH, but worse, of low breeding. The monocle-wearing heir to the throne, who was educated at King's (from which he emerged without School C), finishing school in Switzerland, and the Sandhurst military academy in England, claimed it was Edwards' "personal vendetta" against the Taimi 'o Tonga newspaper and its editor that spawned the infamous anti-media laws,

Edwards' false claims, and the fact that he'd become such a blabber-mouth instead of going quietly into the night, as others had done, were to be expected of someone of his "low breed of character".

"It has always been the policy to appoint ministers from the ranks of gentlemen, and it is in this regard that Clive Edwards' appointment to the Cabinet was a mistake."

As for accusing Edwards of plotting a coup, wrote HRH, "plotting and executing a coup d'etat requires diligence, brains and a high order of organisational skills. For those reasons, it is an activity of which no one can honestly, in good conscience, accuse Clive Edwards".

Just as well Edwards could invoke his commoner background. "I come from a poor and humble family and I make no apology for that."