Bob Jones will not be resting in peace

Bob Jones is dead.

Now.

Some individuals cause so much damage in their life that people celebrate their death and while Bob certainly was one such person (gloating about goading another human being into suicide, his appalling defamation case against Renae Maihi and his increasingly racist attempts at humour), Bob Jones deserves some salute for the mercurial political personality he was and for a uniqueness of rugged Kiwi individualism.

Bob was an arsehole, a prick, surprisingly cosmopolitan, awful, cruel, hilariously funny and played an enormous role in the foundation of the neoliberal state.

By running against Muldoon in 1984, he most certainly helped Labour get elected and was ultimately a catalyst for Roger Douglas.

He was a ratbag, a scumbag, breathtakingly brilliant and surprisingly kind at times.

Like Damien Grant, but with charm.

Bob’s later years were tarnished by grinding against a new generation who viewed him and his legacy with nothing less than righteous disdain.

Which is a fitting legacy for someone as iconoclastic as Bob.

Bob represented the arrogance of white pakeha self made business lords who resented being told they had earned that wealth through privilege and spent the rest of their life trying to punish the State for their denial of it having played a role in their success!

Nothing sums his disdain for the democracy he was trying to disrupt better than this image of him bashing journalist Rod Vaughan’…

…I don’t believe for one second that Bob will rest in peace, knowing Bob he’s cut a deal with Satan and is leasing out corporate rentals in Hell.

Pass easy into the midnight garden Comrade, you made NZ Politics a realm of the possible no matter the selfishness of your end vision.

 

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