Think Enoch Powell crossed with Howard Morrison.

NZ First leader Winston Peters spoke in Hamilton recently and I was privileged enough to be in the audience – privileged in the sense that it was a select crowd.

Colin ‘‘Pinetree‘‘ Meads was but a couple of metres to my left, a local National MP was marginally to my right (where else?) and various big media and political players joined some lucky Wintec journalism students in making up the numbers.

It was the type of event David Shearer thought it might be amusing to arrive late to, although in this as in most other things, the official Leader of the Opposition came a poor second to the veteran upstart.

After all, Winston is the only New Zealand politician that John Key is on record as ruling out as a coalition partner.

A combined Labour-national government is more likely than any rapprochement between the former member for Tauranga and the former merchant banker.

It’s ironic that Key would prefer the strategic forgetfulness of John Banks and the pious prudery of newcomer Colin Craig to someone I first remember as the television front man in National’s 1981 election campaign.

Although Winston Peters lost his Hunua seat in that election – a seat he was very lucky to have occupied at all, after displacing Roger Douglas’ brother in some hair-splitting legal tempted to bring along a few placards with the word ‘‘No’’ printed on them and to hold them up at measured intervals as commentary on one of Peters’ more notorious media stunts. So similar are the two scandals that Banksie could have borrowed Winnie’s originals during his press conferences.

Whatever else was to be taken from the afternoon, Winston put on a grand show. Think Enoch Powell crossed with Howard Morrison. If he is a demagogue, he’s our demagogue: charming, witty, full of knowing allusions and outrageous generalisations, a walking, talking compendium of recent power broking shenanigans and backroom deals. For sheer