Winner Winston

In one thread Chris Bishop made the point that

Peters won, big time. What Clark has basically done is legitimise what Winston did in 1991 and 1992 and then again in 1997 and 1998 – which is be part of Cabinet/the government but claim the authority to criticise them whenever he wanted to keep himself in the limelight. This led Bolger to sack him in 1992 and eventually led to the break upof the Nat/NZF Coalition in 1998.

Clark has now said Winston can be in government, swan off around the world, but feel free to criticise the government any time he likes, as he’s not bound by the confines of Cabinet Collective Responsibility. This is incredible. Perfect for Winston – every thing he wants. He can now campaign right up until the 2008 election as a Minister but also criticising the government.

And already we are seeing this. It seems that on Campbell Live tonight (according to a comment in this thread) Winston claimed that being Foreign Minister is not being part of the Government!!!