James Elliott: Shearer shorn of more than hair - visibility too

Labour's David Shearer with newly shaven head. Photo / Mark Mitchell

The Easter weekend. It was a time to head for the beach. Or to hunt for Easter eggs. Or to engage in the national pastime of keeping statistics on how we die unexpectedly while on holiday.

While the Transport Agency was celebrating a zero Easter road toll, Water Safety NZ had to put up its hand to four drownings.

If only the TAB had been offering odds on that longshot outcome there might have been some solace for backers of the Blues, the Phoenix and the Warriors.

Given that the other national pastime is gambling, surely it wouldn't be too much of a stretch for the TAB to offer just such odds? Is there any real difference between this season's Blues and a car wreck anyway? And those Blues' fans aren't waving by the way, they're signalling to be rescued.

Not to say that betting on the national death toll wouldn't have scope for controversy. If you crashed your car into a lake and drowned is that part of the road toll or a drowning? Maybe it's just a dead heat.

Don't forget that Easter does commemorate a very high-profile unexpected death. And it's fair to say that the events of that first Easter Sunday, the first Easter Uprising as it were, were fairly unexpected as well. We know that the Romans were also sticklers for statistics but it's not clear how they counted that one.

Perhaps the Romans weren't as humourless as history has treated them. There is at least a certain sense of irony in nailing a carpenter to a cross.

Which brings us back to the living or, rather, also the living dead in the form of Labour leader David Shearer.

To be honest, I felt obliged to toe tag him with the title Labour leader just to help identify him.

He seems to be the least visible figure on the national political scene.

So it was hardly a good idea for him to radically alter his appearance by shaving his head for charity. He needs to be reminded that charity begins at home but right now he looks homeless and everything else-less.

It's as if he should be on a missing person's list, reportedly last seen somewhere in Central Wellington with bank accounts and political capital untouched. Maybe he will be added to the drowning statistics, pulled under by one of the many undercurrents swirling around in the Labour caucus. Or maybe he could just be asleep at the wheel, in which case suddenly veering to the right will likely be fatal.

Whichever way it goes you do get the feeling that unless there's some kind of second coming he could become just another public holiday statistic.

One wonders what odds the TAB would offer on him surviving to the aptly named Labour Weekend.

Twitter: @JamesElliott8