Colin James on Ruth Richardson

Now I have finished mowing the lawns backwards (going forwards results in the catcher falling off repeatedly and much swearing and cursing from myself) I've had a chance to do a little Sunday reading. There is sod-all in the papers to catch my attention but this paper from Colin James about Ruth Richardson is worth a read.

You can't please all the people all the time. Ruth Richardson never bothered trying. Would we had a few more like her.

Ruth Richardson was an ideas politician. And she allowed too little intellectual doubt. She confounded one TINA ("there is no alternative"), the undoubted need to deregulate and rely more on the market, with another, that there is only one true set of policies, which is demonstrably untrue. She applied a lawyer's logic to abstract economic rules and then advocated them with the intensity of a courtroom lawyer who allows no doubt about his or her case. She knew best. Actually, the electorate knows best.

But Ruth Richardson did what she did for what she saw as a greater good. She applied principle when it was sure to cause pain, which took at the very least bone-headed determination but also considerable courage. There were threats to her person. There are not many politicians with spines and carapaces like hers and every now and one comes in handy, if for no other reason than to sharpen the debate. Jim Bolger fired Ruth Richardson after his sorry electoral experiences in 1993. But had he not hired her in the first place, the economic gains and the fiscal improvement which paid off after his sacking might well have been compromised. I think Jim Bolger instinctively felt that and that is why we got Ruth Richardson. The irony is that Helen Clark was the beneficiary.