Wendyl NISSEN

Cunliffe was doing a remarkable impression of an old labrador whose final visit to the vet was imminent.

I’m not sure what would annoy me most if I were standing in Karen Price’s shoes today. The fact that now the election is over I haven’t got my life back, able to pursue my successful law career and potter around in my garden with my chickens and bees. Or the fact that, thanks to unwise twittering, I am known across the media as David Cunliffe’s “wife” rather than by my own name, which is not that hard to remember or pronounce.

In a week where the world learned to write and pronounce Amal Alamuddin I don’t think it’s too much to ask for a simple Karen Price.

And while I’m in Karen’s shoes, I’m also going to support her right to set up a fake Twitter account to defend her husband. Because that’s what Kiwi wives do in response to their Kiwi husband’s inability to express themselves.

Cunliffe post resignation, like most Kiwi husbands, had shut down, wasn’t telling Karen how he felt or what he was thinking.

He was doing a remarkable impression of an old labrador whose final visit to the vet was imminent.

That’s what our men do when nasty stuff happens. They stare out of the window and refuse to share.

Kiwi women, however, love to talk it through and fix it.

Especially intelligent ones, like Karen.

“Let’s have a coffee and just hash it all out,” she might have said. “A problem shared is a problem halved,” she may have also added, although I’d like to think she might have come up with a more modern proverb than that.

“Nah,” he probably muttered. “I think I’ll go down to Herne Bay, put my fist against my head in a totally silent way for a very long time. Then I might lie down in the sand.”

And so, Karen was left to her own devices, a year’s worth of anger and stress welling up inside her.

She had stood in this very kitchen with her husband listening to him tell her of the insults, the dirty politics, the plain nasty business of politics.

And she had nodded and soothed and stroked his back saying things like “there, there” and “it won’t be forever”.

He wanted none of that. And so she turned to social media.

Karen is not alone in this common action for women who need to be heard when there are no husbands around to hear it.

Facebook is full of lonely women with cats and crises.

Within minutes, her account was created and she had sent her first tweet.

“That felt really good,” she surely said to herself as she wondered how much longer David would need to sit on a log at the beach.

Before long she was back at her computer, taking fire at the media for creating news “that’ll get pick-up” and kicking Clayton Cosgrove in the guts.

But why choose the name TarnBabe67? As one tweeter observed @TotallyNOTDavidCunliffesWife was probably already taken, but using your nickname and your date of birth is hardly keeping it on the down low. And babe? Was that a last-minute attempt to masquerade as a Kardashian?

Inadvertently, a tired and emotional Karen had done exactly what she criticised the media for doing. She had created news at a time when she and her husband should have been doing a Jason Ede and visiting whichever magical disappearing castle he managed to find during the election.

I hope Karen and David find theirs soon.

And babe? Was that a last-minute attempt to masquerade as a Kardashian?’’