But did he know the details?

No Right Turn has found the smoking gun!

So, when John Key said at his press conference the other day that he didn’t know whether National received donations from the mining industry before the last election, because he didn’t handle that stuff, he was lying. A mining company made a donation (and a valuable raffle prize is a donation), and Key was there when National received the benefit from it.

A few thoughts come to mind.

a) Idiot never actually says that John knew the donation came from a mining company – he may have just turned up and participated without being told all the details. That is unlikely though, as donations like this are usually announced to those present.

b) More likely, he simply forgot. John must have attended thousands of fundraisers, and shouldn’t be expected to remember every detail of every one – he is in fact supposed to be running the country.

But silly me, they’re a local company. It’s the foreign ones that are evil, isn’t it?

As is so often in these cases, the article itself suggests that either of these might be the problem here. The visit is described as “hectic”. It lists numerous policy areas he had to focus on, and numerous meetings.

It’s not a tough call to ask someone to remember a specific donation at a specific event. But it’s impossible to recall every detail of every meeting you’ve ever been in, especially when your mind at the time of those meetings would have been focused on the areas you’re actually responsible for.  Me, if I’m that busy, I’d welcome the opportunity to ignore details that were the responsiblity of someone else.

So sorry, I just don’t believe that a $1000 donation that John Key “conveniently” forgot had that much influence.