KEY POINTS:
Brian Edwards leans forward, eyes sparkling with rare enthusiasm as he talks of the prodigious intelligence of Prime Minister Helen Clark. "In terms of intelligence I wouldn't be in the same league as this woman," says the former journalist, who has interviewed every New Zealand Prime Minister since Keith Holyoake (1960-72). "My mind boggles at how intelligent she is, at her ability to strip away the layers and get to the core of a problem.
"You know how the media call her the Minister of Everything? Well, she actually could be the Minister of Everything because she probably knows more than the Ministers. That's where [Jenny] Shipley's totally lost. She's a sloganeer. She has five slogans, five lines. Helen has that amazing depth of knowledge, that amazing memory."
"Are you sure this isn't just the cry of a person in the pay of the PM?" I ask. Edwards has previously worked with Clark on her presentation, although he considers himself a media coach rather than a spinner.
The famous hackles ruffle, then relax. "To say anything other than this woman is unusually brilliant would be wrong," says Edwards, who did not get paid for writing Clark's first biography, Helen: Portrait of a Prime Minister. Although he had Clark's co-operation and support - the book is thick with family photos, interviews with friends and she has already read the book - he is operating on a royalty basis.
"I've known her for around 30 years," he continues. "In terms of intelligence, David Lange comes near, but doesn't have the command of the issues, his knowledge was at a superficial level."
Although he has known Clark for years, it was only in 1996 that her minders called in Edwards and his wife, Judy Callingham, to look at her media performance. This was three years after Clark had become Leader of the Opposition and just after Michael Cullen's attempted takeover as leader.
Many others had tried to change the perception, but Clark, with her deep, gruff voice and taciturn manner, seemed doomed to be the bridesmaid forever. Maybe she was the best the Labour Party had, but she simply could not transmit her potential to the electorate. Edwards had turned the job down a year earlier, indicating Clark's media problems "insurmountable".
A year later he changed his mind. "Michael Hirschfeld, president of the Labour Party and my closest friend, called me," recalls Edwards. "He said things were really bad. The party's ratings were dreadful, Helen's ratings were dreadful.Would we reconsider?"
So what did Edwards and Callingham do? After Clark made it clear she "didn't want to be deconstructed, couldn't be bothered with image - how you looked and sounded", Edwards and Callingham simply suggested, "What we would like to do is let the real person come across."
"We looked at earlier interviews," says Edwards. "They were really not very good, dreadful in fact. She talked to interviewers as though she was in the House - defensive and with an uneasy smile."
As he says later, Clark is basically shy. "She used to have great difficulty with face-to-face relationships, remember she was a shy little country schoolgirl ... "
Edwards and Callingham decided that the answer was to boost her confidence in front of the camera. "Our advice was, 'Be yourself, and speak in a very, very quiet, intimate way."
Part of Clark's great talent is that she not only took the advice on board - she managed to do what they said. "The next interview she spoke so quietly she was almost whispering," smiles Edwards. "But her style was transformed." Gone was the harsh punctuation and punch, along came the gentler, sweeter Clark.
As she improved and people warmed to her, the media performances, sometimes 20 a day, improved. Clark started enjoying herself.
By the time the notorious ratings worm arrived in September, during the last wriggles of the 1996 election campaign, she had hit her stride. Says Edwards: "The worm just loved Helen, and Helen loved the worm."
Although in that election the Labour Party had a "dreadful result" of 28 per cent, Clark, points out Edwards, did magnificently.
"She wouldn't have survived if she hadn't. That's the guts of it."
All this by getting her to speak softly? More, says Edwards, because she became more confident. "That's the fascinating thing about most famous people - they're terribly lacking in self-confidence. Her change is in confidence and self-assurance. Now Helen's enjoying the media. She loves the challenge of people trying to penetrate her knowledge and intelligence."
Then there is the fact that Clark likes to tell the truth - something Edwards says is the foundation stone of their methods.
"We are not spin doctors. Our advice is always, 'You must tell the truth'. That's one of the reasons why Helen Clark is such a success."
Edwards says Clark's is a 352-page story of endeavour and personal sacrifice. "Helen's greatest quality is stickability and endurance - never giving in. And never wanting to throw out the baby with the bathwater."
In other words the Prime Minister, Helen Clark, is not into hissy fits. Not for her the tantrums and march-outs of Jim Anderton.
"She's very much a politician" and has been dogged by her lack of stereotypical feminine and maternal urges.
Back in November 1981 she was virtually forced to formally marry her long-time partner, Peter Davis, by Party friends such as Jim and Joan Anderton (now Joan Caulfield and Clark's electoral secretary), just weeks after she became the MP for Mt Albert.
Edwards quotes Ruth Butterworth (former political studies lecturer at Auckland University, now retired): "She was resistant up to the last minute. I mean, she was crying on the day. It was just so awful because it was so deeply against her principles."
Their decision not to have children has unsettled many critics. But as Edwards says, "She says she couldn't have done the job if she had had children."
"She realises the style is important but wishes it wasn't," says Edwards. "There's a tremendous double standard here. Rob Muldoon was one of the more unattractive men, David Lange had an enormous girth [and they got away with it] yet you'll find people on the bus or ferry (Edwards now lives on Waiheke Island) saying, 'Oh, but her hair always looks awful'. It's her main problem - no style but all the substance in the world."
"An idea of a nightmare day would be a bit of retail therapy for Helen. She never, ever goes shopping. Twice a year she goes to Jane Daniels, her designer, and buys two outfits she looks good in."
"Only two?" I ask? "Well, maybe she goes four times a year."
Because of Clark's lack of interest, friends such as former governor general Cath Tizard had to urge her to use makeup - even endure a makeover by friend and stylist Maggie Eyre.
The resulting photo, on page 243 of the biography, shows a beautiful version of Clark. But it was not to last.
Soon the ordinary clunky style was back, allowing her enemies to push the rumour that she was a lesbian hiding behind a sham marriage.
"The lesbian thing is largely spurred by Helen's enemies," says Edwards. "And that's another reason why Helen has this enduring hatred of the National Party, which she believes has spread these rumours from way back in 1975 to the present day.
"It's not true she's surrounded by women," he continues."Two [people in the PM's department] are quite openly lesbian. But then Helen's chief press secretary, Mike Munroe, is a man. There are more men than women, more heterosexuals than homosexuals. And Heather Simpson [who has worked with Clark for years] is an organisational wizard, a master of policy, a brilliant political strategist - and she knows everything. She keeps a very low profile but Helen relies on her absolutely."
Despite Edwards' robust defence of Clark, he is adamant.
"I didn't want to write flattering nonsense. Helen can be stroppy, she's not keen to be told something she doesn't like. She'll take it in though ... it might take a week or two".
Edwards' main criticism of Clark is her penchant for publicly criticising her ministers.
"That could bring Helen down," he says. "Her view is, 'If you're going to be open, you have to be seen to be open - I'm not going to tick them off in private and the public likes it ... '
"While she's riding high in the polls she's in a very strong position in her own party but ... if she drops off in the ratings there may be a backlog of grievance there.
"Helen doesn't accept that. Her view is, 'That may be the case, but I'm still going to go on doing it'.
"She is slow to praise and quick to judge ... but that is accompanied by unfailing and devoted loyalty."
On the other hand, he says, people don't know what a caring woman she is. The book, which is liberally illustrated with family snaps, press photos and the odd studio portrait, underlines the observation in many little ways.
See Helen and Peter in the un-done up kitchen of their Mt Eden home, which would make a Kitchen'Things salesperson faint. Notice the straightcut fringe which was surely snipped off at the bathroom mirror when it veered near her eyes.
Look at the photo with her mother where, for the only time in a book jammed with the PM alongside various dignitaries, Clark looks the second-in-command.
The most interesting thing about Helen Clark, Edwards says, he distilled from six months of research and writing. It is her concept as the leader as a servant.
"Helen has no personal ambition," he says. "She's not there to be a showoff, or the big boss getting glory and enjoying perks.
"She's interested in the power as a vehicle to achieve what she wants to achieve. She sees the role as that of a servant of the people, and therefore obliged to be unassuming - she's the least materialistic person I have known.
