Dear John

I would like you to consider me for the role of ACT Party leader.

I understand that the role is currently vacant, and that the party will be looking shortly to appoint a new leader.

I think I just may be the answer to your prayers. So how about it?

Look, I won’t lie to you. Yes it’s true that I’ve never been in any trouble with the police, and a couple of speeding tickets are all I have to my name. But if being charged with or convicted of a criminal offence, such as stealing the identity of a dead child, is a prerequisite for becoming a candidate, then just let me know and I’ll see what I can organise. But you have to promise to put in a good word for me with the judge.

And it’s true that I’m not currently a member of the party. In fact, I’m a member of another party altogether. So I’m really no different to Don Brash or John Banks when they sought to join ACT. In fact, is there anyone in ACT who wasn’t once a member of another party?

It’s also true that I despise ACT and everything it stands for, and would do everything in my power to extinguish it once and for all. I am determined to destroy the ACT brand. But how does that make me any different to John Banks, and you stuck by him, didn’t you?

Actually, the fact that I want to end it for you makes me the perfect leader. You and I both know that your party’s race is run. It has for the last five or six years been a laughing stock, a dysfunctional band of misfits kept going because a few thousand people in Epsom would sooner sell their own mothers than allow a Labour government to take power. What’s the point any more? Wouldn’t you prefer a quiet retirement to this constant feeling of crisis and embarrassment?

Consider me the kindly doctor trying to ease the pain of the terminally ill patient. Yes. we can prolong your life for several months further through a range of surgical procedures, but you will experience immense pain and a complete loss of dignity. Or we can decide to just focus on controlling the pain and giving you a few months more to settle your affairs and say goodbye to your friends and family.

Would you like some more morphine? Here, why don’t I just leave the morphine controller with you, and you just take as much as you want.

PS I don’t have issues with women or minorities, and I abhor racism. I hope these revelations don’t rule me out.