Richard Worth has stood down for “personal reasons”. Of course he will have been pushed.
My guess is that the PM will say some nice things about him on the record while off the record Kevin Taylor will be making it very clear this is a decisive move from a strong Prime Minister who of course can’t tolerate the kind of behaviour but also won’t attack his ex-minister while he’s down (nice man that he is).
Doing it now the scandals have died down a bit ensures that the story get headlines for a day or two at most. Doing it back when the scandals were breaking would have left the media feeling like they had taken a scalp and given them the urge to gloat provide thorough analysis for a week or two.
Update: what a fiasco, it seems that Kevin hasn’t provided the off the record briefing. Or the media are refusing to run the OTR line in order to push Key to put it on the record. Here’s a tip boys, when your frontman is playing along with the “personal reasons” line someone has to give the gallery a “but inside sources say Worth was pushed” tip or you’ll look weak.
Update 2: Rumours of a police investigation are surfacing. I retract my advice. They are going to struggle to save face over this no matter what they do. How interesting.
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