Bridges’ National leadership irreparably damaged

Simon Bridges' leadership of the National Party is irreparably damaged. This is not just about an MP going rogue, it's about buying influence and it's about the candid views of a leader that will inevitably impact on his ability to maintain authority.

Bridges believes Jami-Lee Ross has been recording their telephone conversations for months, pity for him he didn't realise that before now.

You'd have to say, even though the pair claims they were once close buddies, their telephone conversations were more than a little stilted with Ross sounding as though he was conducting an interview, which unbeknown to Bridges that's exactly what he was doing.

If a buddy was having a yarn over the phone to me in that way, making wooden statements to elicit a response, you'd have to be suspicious, surely even more so if you were a former Crown prosecutor.

But Bridges blissfully blathered away about the hundred grand donation and how he wanted to use it for attack ads, not realising that's exactly what it was going to be used for - by Ross against him.

No-one has yet explained why this donation wasn't declared within 10 days as it was required to be under the Electoral Act.

It was apparently broken down into seven fourteen grand donations, with another two grand thrown in, allegedly using some names that haven't been able to be traced through the electoral register.

The legality of that is now for the cops to ferret out.

It's the morality of the donation