LET THEM EAT CAKE

I sometimes wonder why people send me nasty emails.

I have had emails that are obscene/defamatory//incoherent. In fact I have had emails that are obscene, defamatory and incoherent all at the same time. Which has left me wondering about the mental state of the anonymous writer.

I read them and then delete them and that's the end of that. However yesterday I received an email from someone who took offence at my piece about Paula Bennett. He/she thought I was implying that Bennett was fat and ugly.

True, the post was titled 'The Ugly Face of Paula Bennett' but that was a reference to her ugly politics and not a reference to her physical features.

Similarly, I called Bennett an 'intellectual lightweight' because that's what she is. For my anonymous fan to suggest that I was making some kind of subtle reference her to being a physical heavyweight really is pushing the boat out a bit.

Frankly given the amount of misery she is inflicting on the poor and vulnerable, I'm not particularly concerned that people often say that she is the size of a small elephant.

And, as 'The Voice of Reason' noted on The Standard, she seems to have got bigger since arriving in Parliament. When the people she is bashing often have little money left to spend on basic groceries, there is something offensive about her telling the poor how they should conduct their lives.

I like this comment from 'The Voice of Reason':

' ...I have many ways to criticise Bennett, and I don’t think it’s fat-hate to point out that while dealing to the poor she has guzzled herself to the size of a house.

I saw her on telly wearing what looked like a designer bin liner. Some sort of shiny satin poncho arrangement presumably intended to make her less like a troughing Brownlee wannabee. Didn’t work. Bet she can’t even fit in the leopard skin car anymore.'