Truth Is a Beautiful Thing
Goff talks of Churchill; Winston sacks Phil; Luxon is unaware.
Miles and miles on my own
Warm with shame, I follow on
A language to find hard to hear
Not to understand, just disappear
Could you take my place and stand here?
I do not think you'd take this pain
You'll be on your knees and struggle under the weight
Oh, the truth would be a beautiful thing
Oh, the truth is a beautiful thing
Songwriters: Daniel Rothman / Dominic Major / Hannah Reid.
Could it really be just yesterday that I was writing about surprise announcements?
While Adrian Orr’s departure was difficult to understand, Phil Goff's sacking makes no sense. Many will question whether it is justified and whether the punishment—being sacked as our High Commissioner to the UK—fits the crime.
In my view, Winston, rather than Phil, has shamed us; he has shamed his own name and made his boss, Christopher Luxon, look foolish - again.
Goff’s is hardly the first truth-related exit under this government. Normally, though, people find themselves seeking alternate employment for speaking the truth about their own country, not asking in a second country whether the leader of a third country understands an 80-year-old speech.
The whole thing reeks of not really being the reason, or perhaps just a little too convenient.
My friend Debbie commented: “I read the article and can't fathom what was so bad about what he said. Mind you, if he had come out and straight up said the US president is a fascist dictator, I'd still agree with him.” Me too, Debbie, but let’s look at what was said.
Quoting a Speech
On Wednesday, Phil Goff attended a panel discussion at Chatham House in London featuring the Finnish Foreign Minister Elina Valtonen.
During the Q&A session, Goff said, “I was re-reading Churchill’s speech to the House of Commons in 1938 after the Munich Agreement, and he turned to Chamberlain, he said, ‘You had the choice between war and dishonour. You chose dishonour, yet you will have war.'”
He then asked, “President Trump has restored the bust of Churchill to the Oval Office. But do you think he really understands history?”
The Finnish Foreign Minister didn’t directly answer, but she didn’t exactly look upset by the question either and gave a small laugh. Quite possibly because she herself said the following in response to the U.S. order to pause cyber operations against Russia:
“This is probably part of the grand strategy that the White House has chosen to see if this course of action can lead to peace, effectively appeasing Russia and putting some pressure on Ukraine. In my personal view, it should be exactly the other way around, and I trust that President Trump and his team will notice in due course that this probably doesn't work.”
This is not so very different from Goff’s comments comparing Trump’s efforts to end the war in Ukraine with those of Neville Chamberlain appeasing Nazi Germany. Just a little more diplomatic.
Chatham House Rules.
Some of you may have noted or pointed out on my page that the event occurred at Chatham House. A place famous for having rules protecting those who speak freely. The following definition is from Wikipedia:
Chatham House Rules: Anyone who comes to a meeting is free to use information from the discussion, but is not allowed to reveal who made any particular comment. It is designed to increase the openness of discussion. The rule is a system for holding debates and discussion panels on controversial topics, named after the London headquarters of the Royal Institute of International Affairs, where the rule originated in June 1927.
This made me wonder who had ratted Goff out. It was a pretty low-key event and a relatively innocuous statement in the current ocean of criticism directed at Trump’s threatening behaviour and withdrawal of support for Ukraine.
The Finnish Foreign Minister is from a relatively Conservative party, the National Coalition Party, but that party states that it stands for and supports: “equal opportunities, education, supportiveness, tolerance and caring and multiculturalism and gay rights.” So they hardly seem the types to go running to our anti-woke Foreign Minister in defence of Trump.
The best suggestion I could find of what might have alerted Peters to Goff’s comment was the following line in this article from Stuff:
“The decision followed questions from The Post’s Luke Malpass on the comments on Thursday morning.”
Now, it’s entirely possible that some disgruntled junior staffer, there’s always one of those, threw Goff under the bus, but you’ll excuse me if I let my imagination linger on Malpass, formerly of the ATLAS-funded neoliberal think tank The New Zealand Initiative.
Either way, Winston sacked Goff. No chance to explain, “no point”, said Winston, not even the courtesy of a conversation man-to-man between two of our longest-serving politicians. The news has, as I’m sure it was designed to, been run around the world to tell all of our willingness to bend to the bully.
This headline from Al Jazeera:
And this from the Guardian:
Acquiescing to Bullies.
So Winston called Goff’s remarks “untenable”, and he had to go; I’m sorry, what? Has Peters seen what people worldwide have said about Trump since he tag-teamed President Zelenskyy in the smackdown at the Oval Office? Even Prince Harry said the following in a speech shortly after that infamous meeting:
“Now, this would be a great time to talk about how a sickness in leadership across sectors-from politics to tech-can have a detrimental effect on millions, if not billions, of people when service to others is sacrificed for personal gain.
When basic morals and empathy are abandoned in favour of power and control, but I'm not gonna get into all that now!"
“You are not there to free-think”, said Winston when questioned yesterday.
Obviously, a diplomat must be circumspect, but when Europe feels betrayed by Trump’s America, it hardly seems an unreasonable question in such a venue. Even Christopher Luxon tweeted his support for Ukraine after Zelenskyy’s disastrous meeting - should he get sacked, too?
Perhaps don’t answer that.
During Trump’s recent address to the US Congress, those present held up placards saying, “This is not normal”, or highlighting his lies as they were told. Meanwhile, our foreign minister says, “You’re okay with us.”
Good Lord, man. Even Fox News pundits have been questioning Trump's statements, and our commissioner, in an entirely different country, can’t ask whether he understands history?
To be fair, Trump seems surprisingly well acquainted with that period of history and appears to be using it as a blueprint, which is more terrifying than his usual ignorance.
I fully appreciate the sensitivity around any criticism of Trump and the desire to protect our exports from the threat of tantrum-induced tariffs, but more than anything, Trump seems to despise weakness.
And there is nothing weaker than pre-emptively firing your own man just in case his perfectly reasonable words offend the dictator.
Although he won’t even know it, Trump has a kindred spirit in Winston. Another populist politician who says outrageous things to get attention, attacks others but has a notoriously thin skin when criticised, and has been tapping a similar vein for votes.
I imagine Trump’s declaration of War On Woke during that address to Congress was music to Winston’s ears. He’s been fighting that battle for some time.
A Name Shamed.
Good lord Winston, you’re firing a man for referencing the quality of leadership from Churchill when opposing Nazism. The very person you’re named after! Doesn’t this feel even a little bit un-Churchillian?
Or do you remember his speeches differently? “We will surrender on the beaches and in the streets with growing obsequiousness; we will never take a stand?” It’s embarrassing.
People talk rubbish about the potential of a flag change, saying that it would disrespect the memory of those who fought tyranny. In my view, this disrespects their memory. In the words of John Key, Winston: “Get some guts!”
No Surprises.
As you’ve probably heard, Peters didn’t talk to the PM about the sacking.
Winston didn’t feel the need to tell him, and the PM is so feeble that he says he didn’t need to be consulted.
I’m sorry, but are we really expected to believe that Luxon is happy for his Foreign Minister to ditch our representative in London, one of our key diplomatic posts, without mentioning it to him?
It’s so weak; Ardern, Key, or Clark would never have accepted that. Does Luxon even know who's running things anymore? Heads up, Christopher, it’s not you, buddy, and your mates are boasting about who put you there as a figurehead.
When Winston was challenged about not informing the PM, he muttered that he doesn’t need to be told who the Prime Minister is, saying, “I know he’s the prime minister; I made him the prime minister.” Although he didn’t add, “And don’t you forget it, sunny.”
Luxon said, “I expect my ministers to have total accountability over their portfolios; they’re empowered to do that.” Oh really, have you told David Seymour that? Actually, it looks like you have - how’s that working out?
What Others Said.
Audrey Young from the NZ Herald was remarkably quick to release her (paywalled) article, Phil Goff let himself and Govt down with reckless Donald Trump comments - Audrey Young.
Sorry, Audrey, the usual rules don’t apply when the most powerful country on earth is throwing former allies under the bus and aggressively standing over nations that were its closest friends.
For goodness sake, you don’t sacrifice your own people for telling the truth and hope like hell he’ll overlook you the next time he decides to impress his base by threatening America’s best friends and looking tough.
As Chris Hipkins said on the news, by all means, have a word, but did he really need to sack Goff? Helen Clark certainly didn’t seem to think so.
Last Thoughts.
After a career of standing up for what is right and, in my view, being a thoroughly decent man, even if I didn’t always agree with him, Goff deserves better than this.
I hope there is a part of him - the young, long-haired rebel he began as - that has a wry smile and a twinkle in his eye at leaving in such a manner with his head held high and the truth on his lips.
As for Mr Peters, perhaps his parents should have named him after another English leader of the time. No, I don’t mean Neville. I was thinking of Oswald if you know that period of history - which is all that Goff was asking about. 😉
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To end, a lovely track from London Grammar - Truth Is a Beautiful Thing.
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Winston literally just illustrated Churchill’s point: by performing his own anticipatory appeasement of Trump. By sacking Goff. And, he is so afraid of getting Trump’s negative attention that he just—wait for it—elevated our media profile by making this more of a story.
When will the rest of the planet’s “western” nations realise that America’s populace is less than 5% of the globe’s and without consumers, America’s oligarchs have nothing. Unite and resist. The bully will only keep abusing you to fill his endless sadistic void until you stop him. It is THE WORLD who holds the power to end this.
When his tariffs hit? Don’t simply react by reciprocating, jump the shark. Maybe ban and unplug national access of the big platforms: Alphabet (Google), Meta (FB, I-gram, Threads etc) and of course, X (Twitter).
Use the nuclear option. Advance directly to GO!
Winnie had a much bigger diplomacy assignment than the one he chose yesterday. These guys are so weak.