Revelations are harmful but no smoking gun

The secret recording of Simon Bridges chatting about donations with with his former MP JamiLee Ross is awful.

It’s cringe-worthy. It’s embarrassing. And, make no mistake, it is damaging – in the implication alleged that a donation from a wealthy Chinese donor might be repaid by selecting two Chinese candidates, and in the cavalier way that Bridges talks about ‘‘culling’’ some of National’s sitting MPs.

Bridges also appears to be mulling over how much to tell National Party president Peter Goodfellow about the donation, apparently because he wants control over how it is spent on National Party campaigns. That won’t do him any favours with the party.

But the one thing the recording does not do is incriminate Bridges in any way in the central allegation made by Ross, of electoral fraud.

Ross alleges Bridges instructed him to ‘‘hide’’ a $100,000 donation from wealthy Chinese businessman Zhang Yikun by parcelling it up into smaller donations under various names.

But there is nothing in the phone call that corroborates his allegation.

Ross’ failure to produce the smoking gun blows a big fat hole in his crusade against the National leader – his former boss, and a former friend.

But that doesn’t make his threat to drip feed other secret recordings any less destabilising.

Bridges now acknowledges that Ross probably made secret recordings of him and other National MPs over a period of months. He has no idea where the next blindside will come from.

It is an act of treachery on a grand scale. And there is no quick end in sight. Bridges accuses Ross of blackmail, and Ross accuses National of smearing him, after Paula Bennett’s accusation of unacceptable behaviour for a married man sparked questions about affairs.

This is as ugly as politics gets and it could get uglier yet – Ross’ admission that he is in contact with one of the key figures in the dirty politics saga, political adviser Simon Lusk, who has long been linked to the infamous Whaleoil blogger, aka Cameron Slater, will only fuel what is already a bitter war.

Even if the recording fails to point to any illegality by Bridges, however, it has done him incalculable damage.

It reveals him and Ross weighing up the merits of Chinese and Filipino candidates over some of their sitting MPs.

And it has Bridges talking about wanting to get rid of some of his MPs through a cull of the party list , including one he refers to as ‘‘f ...... useless’’ – Maureen Pugh.

These are the sorts of discussions any party leader might have behind closed doors with only the closest members of their inner circle.

Few such conversations could withstand being aired in public.

There were already rumblings of dissent within the caucus about some of the MPs Bridges promoted as payback for their support for his leadership bid – including Ross.

This will rip that scab wide open and could hasten the talk about Bridges’ leadership.

Bridges has denied all of Ross’ allegations made against him and has survived round one but there is a longer game yet to be played.

It is an act of treachery on a grand scale.