A taste of bigger things to come

L-R: David Lange, Michael Bassett, Roger Douglas and Mike Moore became known as the 'fish and chip brigade.' Photo / Geoff Dale

They were four ambitious young men with radical plans for the Labour Party and for New Zealand. Thanks to one enduring image, taken by a young Herald photographer, they would be forever known as the fish and chip brigade.

On the evening of December 12, 1980, photographer Geoff Dale knocked on the door of Roger Douglas' office, not knowing what he would find.

That day, David Lange's first leadership coup of the Labour Party had been thwarted. Lange would have to wait another 14 months before toppling Bill Rowling.

Dale, then a parliamentary photographer for the Herald, had followed Lange and his sidekicks when they surfaced from the day-long caucus.

He snapped them trundling across the road to the Wellington Fish Supply, a fish and chip shop on Molesworth St opposite Parliament. It was a good shot, but not good enough.

"Something didn't quite work, so I walked to Parliament, found their offices and knocked on the door," recalls Dale, who is currently compiling a book of his photos, including this one.

"And they were sitting around the table eating the fish and chips, almost as a quiet celebration. It looked like they were crowning their day's work."

Mike Moore, who a decade later would himself briefly rule, says the photo was tactical. "I thought, this will be a big photo; it will upset some people.

"We had to show confidence and support for David. In a way [Dale] was being used."

Several other Labour MPs left the room before the photo was taken. "People think of themselves."

The ones remaining - Lange, Michael Bassett, Douglas and Moore - went down in Labour folklore as the fish and chip brigade.

Dale says: "It showed them as men of the people with high positions but common tastes. It just felt right."

Dale can't recall if he had any chips.

And he won't have the chance now: 23 years later, in January 2003, the famous Wellington Fish Supplies was, like Rowling, toppled.