OPINION: A strange bedfellow and a tenuous lifeline at Ratana for Bridges

Pattrick Smellie
Fri, 24 Jan 2020

National Party leader Simon Bridges was thrown an unlikely, admittedly tenuous, lifeline at today's annual political pilgrimage to the seat of the Ratana church, a traditional Labour Party bastion.That lifeline came in the form of an unexpected endorsement by the Green Party's Jack McDonald (pictured right).McDonald, who quit as a Green Party candidate last year in protest at the centrist leadership style of co-leader James Shaw, popped up making the formal speech at Ratana on behalf of the Maori Party this afternoon.McDonald used his speech to...

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