28 LISTENER NOVEMBER 5 2016
in corporate relations and government
relations. His work on Brown’s campaign
and then Goff’s was done pro bono. The
pay-off being the win, presumably.
He says he would never run a politi-
cal campaign for the right, not that they
would ever ask him. He does do corporate
work for people who are “on the National
side of things”. That sounded like a con-
flict – he is, as he says redundantly, known
to be “a true believer” in the Labour cause.
But work is work. “The stuff that I do for
my clients is just paid commercial work.
It’s not trying to run a political campaign,
not trying to put them into public office.”
One client is his old chum the multi-
millionaire businessman George Kerr. “He
always said to me, ‘I’m going to get rich
and you’ll always be a bloody leftie loser.’
He made a lot of money and I’m still a
leftie. He hires me and calls me his little
Marxist.”
Is he a Marxist? “No!”
Not judging by the colour of Goff’s bill-
boards. I wanted to know whether it had
been his idea to pinch the National Party’s
blue for those signs. This led to what is a
fairly typical example of how you get on
when you try to get one over a top spin
doctor.
“It was,” he says, “a team decision.”
That they be Nat blue. “That they be
Auckland blue. I think it was a little paler
than the National blue.” It was a little
tricky, too. “Not to trick people. Phil
doesn’t hide his Labour background. He’s
proud of it.”
If he is so proud of his Labour back-
ground, why weren’t the billboards
Labour red? “It was saying: ‘I’m Labour,
but I can work with the other side.’” So it
was calculated? “Yes.” I think that’s a bit
tricky. “No. He does have to work with
whoever’s in government.” He doesn’t
have to pinch their colour! “He pinched
Auckland’s colour.”A
ll of which is a good demonstration
of why he is a top spin doctor and
why I will never be even a mediocre
spin doctor.
I met him at the Goff campaign office
in central Auckland, which is in the
process of being packed up, so has the air
of a deflated balloon after a good party.
Thompson (whom Lewis calls GJ; he calls
Clark Clarky; I don’t know about Browny
or Goffy) was there. When I suggest weDAVID LEWIS COLLECTION; DAVID WHITEgo for a drink at the nearby Mezze Bar, he
SPIN DOCTORING
says he doesn’t know the place. Thomp-
son says, “He doesn’t know about nice
things.”
That seems about right. He is an austere
character, coolish, watchful – all of which
you’d expect from a shadow lurker. It’s
not his job to stand out. His clothes are so
nondescript they defy description. He’d
make a decent spy; he probably does make
a decent spy. He is tight-lipped, which is
also what you’d expect.
The last time I saw him, he said he
didn’t know any gossip because he didn’t
want to know any gossip. I suggested he
must go around wearing earplugs the
entire time. I believe the second part of
his claim about gossip, but not the first.
I say, about the Len Brown affair, that if
he really hadn’t heard any gossip, people
would take him for a fool. “Possibly. I’m
happy for them to think I’m a fool.” You
would have to be a fool to take him for
one. “That’s why I’m happy for them to
think that I am.” He says he doesn’t worry
himself about other people’s private lives.
Hmm.
Thompson suggested that Lewis’ lips
start flapping after three beers. I know this
is untrue, although it is true the superglue
on his lips begins to dissolve a tiny bit
after three beers – and after the recorder is
switched off. Lewis had suggested I inter-
view him and GJ together, and perhaps I
should have, because when GJ joined us
later, he told me a good story about Lewis.It is that when John Key became leader of
the Opposition, “Davy came in and, for
the first and only time, bought me a beer
and said, ‘We’re f---ed.’”
Key, says Lewis, is that good, and his
greatest skill is his ability to watch and
learn while never appearing to watch and
learn. “F----all politicians ever learn.” Key,
he says, has a talent for disguising himself
as an “amateur. He’s as political as Helen.”
That is a dig disguised as a compliment,
I’d say.
Partly, Lewis’ job is to tell politicians
things they may not want to hear; and
mostly people tell politicians only things
they do want to hear. He is the “no” man
in a den of “yes” men. His job is telling
the truth to politicians, then. “It is telling
the truth.” To politicians. “Ha, ha. Telling
the truth. You’re trying to be naughty
again, aren’t you?” Yes, but I don’t know
why I bothered. He has spent much of his
career dealing with the press gallery pack,
and was a journalist himself, so I’m but a
sandfly sans bite.
He – and two others, whose names he
wouldn’t tell me unless I turned off the
recorder – had the job of telling Brown he
was stuffed after all that yucky sex busi-
ness and could not possibly win again.
That wasn’t a pleasant thing to have toDavid Lewis and brother Andrew leaving for
boarding school in 1979 being farewelled by
sister Victoria; Lewis as PM Helen Clark’s press
secretary during “Corngate” in 2002.