Hubris

The real world will change not a wit with the fall from grace for man once described in Parliament as "the son Helen Clark never had."

It's often said that a great political career can be ended in an instant by the appearance in their bed of either a live boy or a dead girl.

There is nothing great about Darren Hughes, but that truism will haunt whatever political career he has left--whatever the outcome of the police inquiry into his actions one late night and early morning last year.

Richard Worthless could tough it out until his sordid behaviour with a live girl was finally sufficient to dismay his boss.  But this morning's front page dissemination of Hughes's evening and early morning with the 18-year-old young man will be enough to hang him politically--however accurate or inaccurate the account.

For my own part, as long as he hasn't broken the law I don't care what Hughes or any other politician gets up to in the privacy of their own lives. Couldn't be less interested. That's their business--or should be.

What I really object to is what they get up to in the glaring publicity of their day job: Which is exercising their power lust over every part of our lives.  Which is our business--or should be.

Frankly, I don't really care what happens to Hughes. He had never had a real job, and beyond developing a certain glib talent at lying for a living (which, besides the ability to fake sincerity--which he was beginning to develop--is the only skill a politician really needs) had never shown any sign of developing any other skill that might fit him for any real career.

But his own future bothers me not. He's a politician, and whatever happens to him now the place he presently occupies will always contain just another politician.

So resign or not--if he's sacked or if he isn't--with any of those eventualities the real world will change not a wit.

And I for one will not care.