Colin Craig and The Civilian

Those of us who pay little or no attention to the posturing ninnies of minor political parties may wonder who Colin Craig is. All I know is that he is rich enough to have his own political party, the Conservatives. I suppose it is good for a man to have a hobby — I have my vegetable garden, Trevor Mallard has TradeMe and Gareth Hughes has #HeyClint.

Craig has hired Chapman Tripp to threaten Ben Uffindell, who writes the satirical website The Civilian with a libel writ. Faugh. In my experience, if people are going to sue they issue a writ, they don’t piss about with a threat. Chapman Tripp’s letter is here, and Uffindell’s robust response is here.

 

The offending passage appears in this piece about Maurice Williamson, which begins:

Pakuranga MP Maurice Williamson is acknowledging that he looks pretty stupid this morning after a series of floods in the Nelson, Waikato and Bay of Plenty regions appeared to contradict his assertion that nothing bad would come of the passing of gay marriage legislation.

And here is the passage of offence:

Conservative Party Leader Colin Craig was among the first to point out the National MP’s mistake.

“Williamson likes to talk about big gay rainbows,” said Craig, “but it would help if he understood what the rainbow actually means. After Noah’s flood, God painted a giant rainbow across the sky, which was a message that he would never again flood the world, unless we made him very angry. And we have.”

Over at The Dim-Post, fellow satirist Danyl McLauchlan has a revealing interview with Mr Craig:

Many people have been wrong about Colin Craig, dismissing him as a political lightweight or  a bible-thumping, homophobic misogynist reactionary dick, but Craig simply shrugs off the criticisms and when you see him squeezing into a red latex dress and tugging a chain-mail hood over his head you realise there’s more to Colin Craig than his critics are willing to allow. They underestimate him at their peril.

UPDATE

The Dominion Post reported at 1:33pm this afternoon:

Conservative Party leader Colin Craig has decided not to take any defamation action against political satire website The Civilian.

Fancy that.