New Zealand Listener - November 5, 2016

NOVEMBER 5 2016 http://www.listener.co.nz 29

do – and he says he liked and still likes

Brown. “It was tough for Len to hear what

we had to say, but he needed to know that

he wasn’t going to have a chance.”

And if Brown had decided to run again?

“I would have said, ‘Mate, good luck. I

won’t be able to run your campaign or be

on your campaign, because I don’t think

you’re going to win.’” I’m fairly certain – I

got one of his spinny answers – that if

Brown had stood again, Lewis would have

run Goff’s campaign against him.

He is tough. He says, about what he

admits was a “slightly brutal” meeting

with Brown, that “it was a logical exercise.

It was a pragmatic exercise, I thought.”

L

ewis used to be bluer than Goff’s

billboards. He’s a private-school boy

• Wanganui Collegiate, his family’s
  “turangawaewae” – who was raised in a
  Tory family. His father was a navy man,
  who rose to become Deputy Chief of Staff;
  his mother is from a large Hawke’s Bay
  farming family. His parents are still true
  blue. I wondered whether they mind that

SIMON YOUNG

he grew up to become a little Marxist. “I

suspect they’d be happier if I was working

for the blue side of politics.”

There has been, he says, the odd barney

over politics over the years, but “we do

talk about politics and we disagree – so we

don’t talk too much about politics”. He

is supposed to be the great persuader and

yet he still hasn’t managed to persuade

his parents of the error of their political

ways. “You should meet my father! He’s

conservative.” And a rigid navy chap, pre-

sumably. “Well, in his political views. But

then so am I. So I can’t hold that against

him. He’s a good bloke.”

He enjoyed being a boarder at Colle-

giate, which was then an all-boys school.

You imagine the discipline and a certain

austerity would have suited him. He

didn’t get terribly homesick and got on

well with the other boys. “I had condi-

tioned myself to the fact that I was going

there. My brother’s three years older ... so

I knew I was going there.” He was caned

a few times – “for smoking, that sort of

thing”.

A

t university, where he was supposed

to be studying to be a lawyer – which

seemed “a good lark” until he

decided he didn’t want to be a lawyer – he

was “still a little Tory bastard”. Then he

decided he wanted to be a rugby journal-

ist, until he became one and decided he

didn’t “want to spend the rest of my life

talking to rugby players”.

He went to England on his big OE,

encountered Margaret Thatcher’s Brit-

ain and came back “a screaming bloody

leftie”. He joined MP Annette King’s office

and then Clark’s, as a junior press secre-

tary, when Labour was in opposition, and

eventually became her chief press secre-

tary – so he must have been an extremely

good shadow lurker.

This career path is what journalists call

crossing over into the dark arts and we

pretend not to see the attraction. But you

can, of course, see the attraction of being

close to power and of helping politicians

into positions of power. “You did want

to be close to the centre. When you’re

around a senior politician like Helen,

you’re around where the news is being

made.” It might also be nice for one’s ego.

“It’s probably good for the ego.” It is a

reflected importance. “There’s a little bit of

that,” he says.

Making sure there is only a little bit of

that is the trick. The only time a senior

press secretary should be in the news is

when he or she takes the bullet. His bullet

was the infamous car-speeding episode in

which the PM’s car broke the speed limit

getting from Waimate to Christchurch

Airport so they could make a plane to

get to a rugby game. That was his fault.

He was the one who wanted to get to the

game. Why, the PM probably wouldn’t

have even noticed how fast they were

going. That’s his story and he’s sticking

to it.

Sticking to it is the other great trick

in the spin doc’s repertoire. He learnt

from Clark and her chief of staff, Heather

Simpson.

“A lot of it is making sure you’re

keeping things simple and not overcom-

plicating things. You learn discipline and

staying on message.”

I got him that third beer. I contem-

plated having another go at those

Nat-blue billboards, but as he has learnt

well from those past mistresses of staying

on message, I didn’t bother. Only a fool

would have. l

“It was tough for Len to hear what we

had to say, but he needed to know that

he wasn’t going to have a chance.”