Peter Davis

According to the SST Investigate Magazine is publishing tomorrow a story on Peter Davis, on the basis of the election night photo showing him being kissed by Ian Scott.

This is all very silly and very stupid and I said so a year ago when Prime first showed the footage. To quote myself:

This is one of those issues I was inclined to not even comment on this, but there are posts appearing on other blogs, so I figured it was better to add some balance, rather than do an ostrich.

Some people are already getting excited about the rumour that Holmes tonight (830 pm on Prime) will show footage or stills of a kiss between Peter Davis and a man on election night.

From what I understand it is pretty obvious that Peter Davis was taken by surprise, and it is all relatively harmless. In fact from the photo I have seen, it may just be a kiss on the cheek.

I don’t think a public party with every media in the country in attendance is the sort of place where you act indiscreetly, if there is anything to act indiscreetly about. Seriously, think about it. If you had a secret boyfriend, would you be kissing him in front of 30 journalists and several TV cameras.

Also I imagine everyone there was pretty pissed and in a celebratory mood, and photos afterwards often take things out of context. If my partner had just been re-elected PM for a third time, I’d be pretty happy and doing stupid things.

To use an example of the last one, a couple of years ago an organisation I am involved with had a major league piss-up to celebrate a very successful sale. Myself and others drank a lot of ouzo that night. The next day I didn’t recall much of the previous night, but was amused to hear there were photos of me dancing with a staff member. I assumed it was the incredibly gorgeous female staff member, but instead the photo was of me dancing with the not so gorgeous male staff member 🙁

And no that is not a sign of repressed anything, just signs of too much alcohol!

So watch Prime tonight and have a wee laugh. But please lay off the conspiracy theories.

It saddens me that Investigate is fixated with Peter Davis (who is not a politician) and see it fit to run this story. I will make the point that Ian Wishart deciding to publish something is not the same as a National frontbencher getting up and threatening to reveal dirt, and then revealing such dirt in the debating chamber..

The Sunday News also refers to another Investigate story on Davis regarding alleged behaviour on a US trip. Again I think it is deplorable to publish this stuff without proof and while Ian Wishart has done some very good journalism with his Tamihere, Benson-Pope and Parker stories, his continual focus on sexual orientation undermines all that.

Now some may claim that this proves National is as bad as Labour at muck raking. Again I repeat that Ian Wishart is not National. You can not compare what he does with the actions of senior cabinet ministers and the PM.

It is certainly true that at a conversational level Nats do sometimes discuss matters concerning the PM and speculation associated with that. Hell I have even done that myself . But not just about the PM. The Coddington-Kerr stuff gets discussed, the Prebble affair, who kissed who at last night’s party etc. People like to gossip and no-one is immune.

There is a significant difference between gossiping and between deliberately trying to dish dirt in public by way of press conference or shouting it out in the debating chamber. And I had the opportunity to discuss the various allegations flying around at the moment with a senior gallery journalist yesterday. He confirmed that Labour MPs and their staff on a constant basis encourage journalists to expose the (alleged) Brash affair and also have been pushing a very nasty false story about a National MP and his family. I then asked in regard to the Davis rumours whether National MPs ring up pushing the rumour, encouraging them to run a story. I was very gratified that the response was “You know, I don’t think I have ever had a National MP talk to me about that (US trip) rumour”.

This is not meant to portray National MPs as pure angels, and all Labour MPs as filth peddling scum. In fact most Labour MPs are pretty decent people. But Labour made a very deliberate decision to expose the (alleged) affair of Dr Brash, and that did set a new low. They pushed the nuclear button and at some stage there will be consequences of that.

One blog has already published a scurrilous list of rumours about high profile journalists (no I am not linking to it), and the next step could be one about MPs. That would be a very bad thing, because MPs should be allowed private lives, but this is the problem when you let the genie out of the bottle.