Let me be clear on one issue I believe to be an obvious fact  but others disagree. N.Z First is Winston Peters and Winston Peters is N.Z First. Without Winston N.Z First would rapidly fade away. It may have been possible for Andrew Williams to be his appointed successor, but petty personality politics within N.Z First have put an end to that idea. Since Winston had his messy, public split with Brendan Horan, there has been no obvious choice to take over the leadership of N.Z First. To successfully lead a political party a person needs at least some charisma and public recognition factor.  (Something ACT seems to have struggled with now that John Banks is political history.) Winston Peters has these qualities in bucket-loads and very few others and has been a successful career politician. I don’t have any insight into how N.Z First operates internally but I would guess that Winston is the boss and what he says goes. I assume Winston gave the thumbs-up to blind-siding  Andrew Williams. Williams obviously believed his previous experience in politics, his high ranking on the party list at the last election, and his public profile would safeguard him. Winston probably saw all those things as reasons to get rid of him. Williams has now been completely exorcised from N.Z First, no mention of him at all on the N.Z First website. Winston considers his public tantrum after being demoted out of parliament proves he’s not a team player. True I guess. But you can imagine the public tantrum Peters himself would resort to in similar circumstances. It has always been all about him. Now with Horan and Williams out, Winston drags another bunch of names with no public recognition factor into parliament with him.  He doesn’t care. He knows it’s all about him. To make it worse both National and Labour are fluttering their eyelashes at him as a potential coalition partner. As the major parties attack the fine details of each others economic policy, they seem relaxed about N.Z First having no details at all to explain the costs of their policies. They try to unravel the complicated money-go-round each of the main players uses to explain how they intend to pay for the promises they made to the electorate. Winston doesn’t bother with that stuff. He knows he doesn’t need to. Human beings vote with the heart, not the head. Winston doesn’t need to explain anything to anybody. He knows that the people that will vote for him don’t care about fiscal realities, they prefer blind faith. He knows he just needs to get peoples attention and then say something borderline offensive, most likely an incitement to the instinctive urge to distrust that which is different to yourself. Every election year Winston plays the race card. I don’t believe he dislikes Asian people. He should love them. The more Chinese people settling in N.Z, the easier it is for him to stir up discontent about them. If they show they have more wealth than their neighbours, it becomes easier still. When Winston Peters thought gratitude for the Super Gold Card would get him over the line in 2008 he didn’t bother doing  much immigrant bashing. He has learnt his lesson. Mention the Super Gold Card, (really crappy name for a pensioners I.D) and the oldies say “But what have you done for us lately?”  Criticise Asian immigration and they’ll form an orderly queue to join the mob to demonstrate their agreement. Not just Asians, I think Winston Peters will have a go at anyone if he thinks there’s a few votes to be gained. The idea of Winston and his nameless cronies holding the balance of power should terrify New Zealanders. Have we forgotten last time? Or the time before that? He was such a jerk, playing off Labour against National and seeing which would offer him the most, while soaking up the attention of the same media he so resents when it reports his foul ups. It would be three years of ecstasy for the media. Winston loves to blame the media and have a go at them every time he mucks up, and as Foreign Minister, (I know, it’s unbelievable) he had many opportunities to muck up and pretty much took them all. The media loves his tirades against the media and reports them diligently. I don’t dislike Winston, but I don’t believe his brand of political opportunism is good for New Zealand. Winston Peters is all about himself. I think our representatives should be all about all of us. The thought of Winston back in government almost makes me hope National get an outright majority. God help me. Still, the good news is he can’t go on forever, and he has made sure his party will go when he does.