The BOGAN WHIP
At the Carterton Rotary Christmas parade, Kieran McAnulty, the Labour MP who turned the Wairarapa from blue to red in the October election, was dressed from the waist up as an elf. Down below he was wearing shorts and jandals. He was also wearing his sunnies. He looked utterly ridiculous. He said he thought that was rather the point and did I mean he looked generally ridiculous or just ridiculous today?
He looks a bit elfish generally, really. He’s a little, angular bloke; whippet thin, which is handily appropriate now he’s his party’s chief whip (he was a junior whip in the last Government).
Despite some murmurings about the possibility of a ministerial post, he got the job he wanted, he says. “I have spent 12 years trying to win this seat, and I can’t think of any other job where you would spend that long trying to get it and, as soon as you get it, start looking for another job.
“I want to keep this seat for as long as I want to do this job and I want to do a shitload for the region. But I won’t be able to do that if I’m off doing ministerial shit straight away.”
He may be brainy. “Oh, I don’t know. No one likes to show off.” He used to be a bookie.
He’s like the kid who wished for a model aeroplane for Christmas and
