Resignation, No. 1 [update 2]

So if Phil Heatley has resigned for being caught using the taxpayer as his family’s personal ATM Machine, what’s keeping Sir Double Dipton, aka Bill English, in office?

Double standards?

UPDATE 1: If anyone tells you, oh I don’t know, that Heatley’s resignation is an example of John Boy’s manly management style, that Clark wouldn’t have been so swift, that he “shoots members of his own party” – you know, the usual Oh-My-God-John-Boy-Is-My-Hero-I-Love-That Smiling-Assassin line – then just consider that in cancelling his planned appointments and returning to Wellington in a hurry John Boy looks as confused about this as anyone, and that in his media conference this afternoon he said he did not think Heatley should have resigned.

So any “sackings” exists only in the minds of John Boy’s fan club.

And no fear either letting them tell you about John Key’s “high standards” for his ministers; that he won’t accept any misbehaviour from his cabinet; that he “has again been quick to draw a line in the sand where a Minister behaves in a manner not befitting his role.”  To those people you only need to say two words: Bill English.

UPDATE 2: Richard McGrath argues the Heatley’s self-immolation means “the long wait was over for a National Party MP to act in accordance with commonly accepted principles of honesty and responsibility.”

    “Perhaps now that Mr Heatley has demonstrated a shred of decency, Bill English may wish to reconsider whether he should have at least offered to resign, after taking a thousand dollars a week from the taxpayer to fund his million dollar home in Karori - with his wife already earning a comfortable income as a doctor.”
    “The Libertarianz Party commends Mr Heatley. He has raised the bar for his cabinet colleagues. . . ”