New Zealand Listener

Trussian roulette

The catchphrase of the famously melancholic movie The Sixth Sense was “I see dead people”, but the punchline was, “They don’t know they’re dead.”

So it is that many ex-politicians roam the Earth believing themselves immortally potent on the basis that a few people – often out of mere politeness – still seem to recognise them.

This has always been a feature of politics,

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