PATTRICK SMELLIE: Self-inflicted wound stops National in its tracks

PATTRICK SMELLIE: Self-inflicted wound stops National in its tracks
Alone with his mea culpa, National's finance spokesman Paul Goldsmith
Pattrick Smellie
Paul Goldsmith called it “irritating”.Over and over again, he said it, as journalists tried to get to him to say he was “embarrassed” by the $4 billion mistake in the numbers that underpin the National Party’s two day-old promise to cut taxes by $4.6 billion.Gleefully pointed out by Finance Minister Grant Robertson just three hours before National was to attempt a ‘virtual’ election campaign launch, the error is what spin doctors might call “untidy” in public while privately imagining a thou...

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