Asleep on the Soper

 Allow me this conceit, please.

I rarely discuss politics these days. It is such a polarising subject and, quite frankly, if I am in a room with anybody, I almost certainly know more about politics than anyone else there. My eldest son urinated on Norman Kirk, I sat terrified in countless meetings with Rob Muldoon, I was on the Rainbow Warrior with Helen Clark the day it was bombed, I partied hard with Mike Moore (and his wife Yvonne), and I was among a small and select group of people David Lange consulted the day after his election as prime minister in 1984.

So, I don’t talk politics. I have lived it, I am jaded by it, and I don’t want to embarrass anyone I talk to about it.

However, yesterday I purchased Barry Soper’s new book, *One Last Question, Prime Minister*, which regales us with stories from his life as a political correspondent under every New Zealand prime minister from Muldoon through to Luxon. I haven’t finished reading it, but even now I commend it to all my friends. It is insightful, witty and, above all, well written.

My appreciation of the book is heightened by the fact that I knew almost all the people in it personally. In fact, I predated Mr Soper, because he joined the Parliamentary Press Gallery in 1980, and I had been working with Norm Kirk in 1972 (“It’s Time”) and Rob Muldoon in 1975 (“Dancing Cossacks”).

I could write a book about my time in politics, and it has been suggested. But Mr Soper’s book, with its tales of back-room, smoke, and fish-and-chip shenanigans, is far superior to anything I could write.

Still, I will share one anecdote with you that I hope you will enjoy. It concerns the 1975 election, when I worked with the advertising agency Colenso as one of its media directors. Colenso—specifically account director Mike Walls—created the infamous Dancing Cossacks campaign while I was working there.

We saw a lot of Muldoon. He would come into the Whittaker Place agency almost every Friday night. Ostensibly, it was to hear about the latest campaign plans, but we all believed that he secretly relished the relaxed atmosphere and the chance to wind down at the end of the week. We obliged. Before he arrived, the drinks—gin or vodka—were poured, and the prettiest receptionist with the shortest skirt stayed behind to serve them. Nothing untoward happened regarding the receptionist, but she would usher him into our large meeting room, sit with him, and continue to ply him with drinks.

There was method in this madness. Business was indeed transacted at these meetings—namely, the presentation of the planned advertising. But with the connivance and cooperation of his personal campaign team, anything potentially contentious was left to last, by which time Muldoon had usually fallen asleep.

This subterfuge was aided by having Muldoon sit in a dimly lit area of the room, with the other end—apparently for presentation purposes—brightly lit. The strategy was successful. Inevitably, Muldoon, plied with drinks, would fall asleep in the darkness, and our signal to roll out the contentious stuff was his snoring. The meetings were minuted, so if Muldoon subsequently disagreed with something we presented, we could say he was there when the decision was made—asleep, but there.

I was terrified of Muldoon in those days. Ironically, we later became neighbours when we both had homes at Hatfield’s Beach, north of Auckland. We would nod at each other and sometimes chat as we passed each other on the beach. But he didn’t remember me from the Colenso days, and nor did I remind him.

Yes, I could write a book. But, as previously stated, Soper has done it—and done it much better than I could. It’s called *One Last Question, Prime Minister*, and it is well worth the read.