It is said the “trouble with publishing is that too many people with half a mind to write a book, do so”.

Or as Winston Churchill would put it, the trouble with Andrea Vance and reality is that they are separated by the English language.

Words and facts matter, and as lawyers know an essential part of one’s training is keeping detailed notes and records when the occasion requires it.

And thank heavens we did.

The comical absurdity of Vance’s ‘work’ in suggesting that Jacinda Ardern offered me the Deputy Prime Ministership in the 11th hour of negotiations to clinch the deal is something not one National Party MP believes. Why? Because they have a record of Day One in negotiations as we do, and as Labour does, in their case. The Deputy Prime Ministership was decided on Day One of negotiations, as it was in 1996, or in terms of Foreign Affairs, on Day One of the 2002 negotiations with Helen Clark and her team.

To imagine me asking on the 11th hour, like Oliver Twist, “please Mam can I be Deputy Prime Minister” is the absurd verging on the ridiculous.

As for her maligning Steven Joyce, he will have a right to be upset. Because our negotiator dealt exclusively with Wayne Eggleston. There are countless other examples of Vance’s fiction but one would not want to be petty about it.

To be generous I’m going to recommend her book for the New Zealand Book Awards – Fiction Category. I suggest those who have bought her book put it on Trade Me as “New Zealand’s lightest doorstop”.

New Zealand First made our decision in 2017 because we wanted Capitalism to regain its human and responsible face.

Sadly since 2020 we’ve seen the ugly face of socialism and racial preference emerge.

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