An analysis of the ties that bind

My father once told me that there was an old saying that went: “Never trust a man who wears a bow tie.” I considered this to be a bit dubious particularly when some years later we resolved to wear bow ties and boater hats in our butcher’s shop. I suggested to dad that did this now mean we couldn't be trusted? 

But he reckoned the adage didn't apply when the bow tie was part of a uniform.

I thought about this when parliament’s most principled man Peter Dunne, who has latterly taken to wearing bow ties, was recently found to be untrustworthy. There’s some confusion as to whether or not he leaked a sacred government document, but he subsequently lost the trust of his leader and as a consequence his position of cabinet minister outside of cabinet.

Back in his four-in-hand days, the worm turned favourably for Peter Dunne when a studio audience in a televised political debate deemed his contribution to be the most sensible. He became New Zealand’s most trusted politician overnight.

But that was yesteryear.

Winston Peters in a cruel insight suggested “there’s no fool like an old fool” and certainly it looked as though Mr Dunne may have had a crush on the lovely Andrea Vance and was possibly showing-off his unfettered access to secret cabinet papers to attract her attention.

I suspect at this point Mrs Dunne will have lost trust in him as well.

Meanwhile Ms Vance disappeared from her post at the Dominion-Post, apparently taking up a scholarship on some distant shore, away from the pestiferous pens of those who follow her craft, but work for rival organisations.

All of this proved, if indeed we needed any proof, of the sheer stupidity of the MMP system of government. Peter Dunne leads a non-existent party called United Future. It’s not united and it has no future.

It was formed to contest the 2002 election when United New Zealand and Future New Zealand resolved to join forces. United New Zealand was originally formed as a centrist party by a group of moderate Labour and National MP’s and held just one seat in parliament, that of Mr Dunne.

Future New Zealand, which was not represented in parliament, was a “secularised” evolution of the Christian Democrats, following the same basic principles as the Christian Democrats, but abandoning the explicit religious connection. I’ll swear I heard a cock crow three times when they initially proffered that explanation.

United Future attracted a good deal of cynicism when in 2004, in an attempt to widen its voting base, it partnered with Outdoor Recreation New Zealand, another minor party that had received only 1.28 per cent of the vote in the 2002 election and sought representation via the coat-tails of Mr Dunne’s popularity in Ohariu-Belmont.

Coat-tails - not the bow tie.

Outdoor Recreation New Zealand was, I gather, basically a group of deer hunters who vehemently opposed the laying of 1080 poison.

But surely the most damning aspect of our flawed system of governance came when we learnt that Mr Dunne, by not having an actual party to represent, loses $122,000 in funding and by losing his seat outside cabinet a salary reduction of $13,900 now giving him a somewhat reduced annual income of $140,000, give or take a few dollars.

Compare that with your own take-home pay and I’m sure you’ll conclude that he will still be able to live the high life with or without his wavering wardrobe. But for one man, trustworthy or otherwise, to be able to channel so much taxpayer money into his questionable coffers shows that stewardship of our treasures is not something our representatives are skilled at.

I looked through my modest clothes cabinet and could discern only one bow tie; a black one to be worn on the very odd formal occasion when I might don a dinner suit. 

If you should encounter me in this garb on some rare occurrence, give me a wide berth. Under those circumstances, clearly I cannot be trusted.

“Those who make their dress a principle part of themselves, will, in general, become of no more value than their dress.”– William Hazlitt