As a tribute to Dame Cath Tizard, whose death will be mourned throughout New Zealand, I recall a story I heard her tell about a visit she made to a primary school when she was (New Zealand’s first woman) Governor-General.

She asked a group of children at the school what they would like to be when they grew up. A number of answers were offered, and she then asked the question of one little boy who had stayed silent. He struggled to come up with an answer, so she asked him “Would you like to be Governor-General?” The little boy flushed and looked embarrassed. “Aw,” he said. “I’m not a girl!”

Bryan Gould
1 November 2021

As I await Sunday morning’s test match between Wales and the All Blacks, my mind goes back to the last time that Wales won against the men in black – 68 years ago, in 1953. I was then 14 years old, and I was allowed to stay up (or, rather, to be woken up) to listen to Winston McCarthy’s commentary on the match.

The match was a close-fought affair. The two teams each boasted star players – Bleddyn Williams and Ken Jones for Wales, for example, and for the All Blacks, Ron Jarden, my own particular hero. As the tour started, one commentator had opined (rather unkindly) that the backline was “weak from the scrum out to Jarden, and then back again”; the forward pack, on the other hand, was reckoned to be pretty good.

As the match reached its closing stages, the All Blacks had a narrow lead (or perhaps the scores were even?) and they had spent much of the second half camped on the Welsh line. They were unable, however, to engineer what would have been the conclusive score, and this failure was (perhaps unfairly) attributed to the inability of the first five, Laurie Haig, to set the line alight; Haig, of course an amateur, was a coal miner and – it was suggested – his unaccustomed freedom on tour from his usual hard work had led to him putting on weight and slowing down.

In any event, the game reached its climax when a Welsh forward suddenly found himself in possession close to the touchline and briefly unchallenged; in a panic as to what to do, he hoofed the ball diagonally across the field to where the two great wings, Ron Jarden and Ken Jones, were stationed.

The New Zealand defenders had to turn and run back for the ball. Jones, however, was able to run on to it, it bounced kindly for him, and he scored for the Welsh to win the match. My recollection of this vital episode was no doubt originally formed in my mind’s eye by the radio commentary and has undoubtedly been since confirmed by the many times I have seen the video recording of it.

It is hard to believe today that, at that time, the Welsh were regarded as our greatest foes; they had a winning record against us at that time of two to one and the 1953 match was a sort of unofficial World Championship final.

I was distraught at our loss, which seemed to me to be the greatest possible catastrophe. That sentiment was widespread; I seem to recall our teacher on the following day treating me and my class mates gently, and not requiring too much of us, as if he was sharing our grief.

How amazed I would have been if I had been able on that morning to look forward over the next 68 years!

Bryan Gould
29 October 2021

We must now accept that our national response to the Delta variant has not been as successful as our initial effort last year when the coronavirus first made an appearance. This, we can assume, is partly because the Delta variant is a more formidable opponent but also partly because our “team of five million” has fractured and has failed to work together.

That split has been brought about by the emergence of an unofficial body of dissenters who have refused to work with the rest of us and have, in many cases, tried to undermine the efforts we are making to beat the virus. Those dissenters are partly made up of dedicated political opponents of the government, who would resist and oppose any initiative of the government – on the virus or anything else – simply because it comes from the government; their goal is to prevent Jacinda Ardern from winning a further term – for them, to defeat the virus is to concede the next election.

But this group of party political opponents has been supplemented by a hitherto unrecognised and subterranean body of far-right, “libertarian” activists who oppose anything that comes from government (of whatever colour or persuasion) and whose antipathy towards authority or experts or science leads them into the ranks of “cranks” on issues like vaccination and lockdowns and conspiracy theories more generally. These innocents have then been exploited by those with other agendas of their own.

And, supporting these two sometimes disparate groups, has been NZME and the Herald. Their position has at times been somewhat ambivalent; they have been active supporters of vaccination, but have on other issues maintained their traditional stance of offering their column inches to any critic of the government.

So, we have had constant sniping in the pages of the Herald from such as Mike Hosking and Barry Soper (and their spouses), and from in-house contributors like Fran O’Sullvan and former right-wing politicians like Richard Prebble and Steven Joyce. As a result, the Herald has at times been caught in a kind of no-man’s-land – supporting vaccination but doing what it can to undermine a government that is pinning its hopes on vaccination as the centre-piece of its own strategy to beat the pandemic.

A couple of conclusions might be drawn from this sad picture. It is not the government that has, as Judith Collins proclaims, divided us into two classes – the dissenters and anti-vaxxers have done that all by themselves. And, it is not the government that has failed us; we have failed the government. The team spirit that worked for us last year has failed us this year.

Bryan Gould
27 October 2021

It should come as no surprise that the government’s critics, on the pandemic and other subjects, are from the political right. For many of them, the touchstone is purely political – if the policy is right-wing, it is “right”, and, if not, then it is by definition wrong.

In no case is this more true than that of Mike Hosking (or, as my spell-checker would have it, Mike “Honking”). In his latest diatribe in the pages of the Herald, he veers off into serious irrationality. He finds it possible to urge our government to emulate Boris Johnson in the UK; here, he argues, is an example of a government that puts “freedom” first, and freedom, he says, is a prize for which it is worth paying a high price.

He does not, however, bother to specify just how high that price is. The UK suffers about 50,000 new Covid cases and around 200 deaths each day (and has suffered 140,000 Covid deaths in total). Each of those deaths leaves a hole in the lives of many others and in the country’s economy. Even making due allowance for their population at ten times ours, the figures are staggering.

Never mind, says Hosking, this is an example of what a government of the right can achieve in the name of freedom. He is led into similar irrationally when he looks at other aspects of our domestic scene. Giving vent to an impatience that no doubt many of us feel, he urges our government to respond to the unvaccinated by “cutting them loose”. Why, he asks, allow them to hold the rest of us to ransom?

Sadly, however, it is not as simple as that. To proceed to end all restrictions, while leaving a substantial proportion of the unvaccinated in the community, is to guarantee that the virus will continue to thrive and spread and threaten the most vulnerable for the foreseeable future. And some (Maori and the young, in particular) will be more vulnerable than others. Thankfully, governments – whether of the right or the left – are a little more hard-headed than that. It is noteworthy that the UK Health Secretary continues to urge people to get vaccinated.

Wishful thinking is still wishful thinking, even if it has precise dates attached to it.

Bryan Gould
21 October 2021

Could it be that the Herald is beginning to twig that an unremitting hostility to the government does not go down well with all its readers? The evidence for that is that, in today’s issue, two contributors (Bill Ralston and Steven Joyce) who usually enjoy sticking the knife in, take a more measured and balanced approach, and allow a small glimmer of good news to become apparent.

This does not, however, mean that the Herald can desist from giving prominent billing to a report – not about the Prime Minister’s politics but about her private and personal life – and there is surely nothing more personal than preparations for one’s wedding?

We are told that Jacinda and Clarke, while visiting a hotel out of Auckland, had identified it as a possible venue for their wedding reception – but the negotiations had broken down when the couple had stipulated that their friend, the celebrated chef Peter Gordon, should be responsible for the catering. The proprietor was unwilling to accede to this request and the negotiations had therefore broken down.

We are further told that the disappointed proprietor had produced, as a term in the “contract” that had yet to be agreed, a cancellation clause that required the couple to pay a cancellation fee of $5000.

One does not need to be a lawyer to recognise that such a claim would be unlikely to succeed, but this does not deter the Herald from giving prominence to the story. Leopards, after all, do not change their spots.

Bryan Gould
17 October 2021