David V Goliath of Depravity

Hone Harawira said it best: “Nice guys don’t last long in this game.” Attorney General Chris Finlayson described him is a good man, who had great experience in dealing with civil wars and humanitarian crises. But that, said Finlayson, was not enough to prepare him for the Labour leadership. "Nothing could have prepared him for dealing with that lot.”

Both neatly summed up David Shearer and his fate. David Shearer to all appearances seems a nice guy; yesterday all his friends and political foes said so. All except John Banks who called him useless. What is it about small men? And if Shearer’s adventures and bravery in the Middle East were perhaps a little over-stated—the Al Qaeda he would have likely met would have been much like Australian Masterchef’s Samira El Khafir, not dangerous, just vaguely annoying—he has nevertheless served this country well. Just in another environment.

Politics is not a nice place to be. Nor does it necessarily nurture and protect nice people. That was David Shearer’s problem: Little Red Riding Hood in the midst of a feral pack. Even so, he may have survived, but this week he committed the cardinal sin of politics and politicians. As a politician you can lie and cheat, have adulterous affairs and even run off to Paris at taxpayers’ expense. But what you cannot do is be ridiculed and humiliated. That happened this week with the snapper affair. It was a disastrous mistake: the last straw for some and the opportunity for others. The pack attacked. And David was devoured.

David Shearer will be remembered as a nice guy; his 20 months as Leader of the Opposition will not be remembered at all. But what I will remember and take from this whole depraved business is that sadly we have further evidence that all too often nice guys do indeed finish last. Or in David Shearer’s case, and in retrospect, they are possibly finished before they start.