Andy, Sandy and Tony
In my last post I said,
The thing I like about such huge claims under parliamentary privilege is that whatever happens, someone will be left with egg on their face. Who will it be? Windsor, Anderson or McGuire? One of them must be lying. So far John Anderson and Sandy Macdonald have categorically denied Tony Windsor’s allegations.
But I failed to mention there is no guarantee the egg will land on the lying face(s). Who is telling the truth and who will be the fall guy are two different questions. While we like to think the guilty get punished, there are no guarantees. Real life is not a fairy tale.
So far, most people seem to be opting for the easy solution to this story: Either John Anderson and Sandy Macdonald are lying or Tony Windsor is lying. The web based opinion polls favour Tony over Andy and Sandy [for example, here].
The typical conspiracy theory is that Andy and Sandy made the inducement and then bought the silence of their intermediary with a $6 million government grant. Some cynical adherents to this theory expect Andy and Sandy to get off. Either the Tamworth businessman, Greg McGuire, or Windsor will be left with their reputations in tatters. While this is a possible construction of events, I am not convinced.
If you accept the Simon Crean hypothesis — that both Anderson and Windsor are men of character (notwithstanding their mutual loathing of each other) — then McGuire is the weak link in this story. One possible scenario under this thesis is that McGuire was guilty of an overly fertile imagination and an inflated sense of self importance and Windsor was his unintended victim.
The robustness of today’s anticipated statement from McGuire will go some way to answering these questions. A compelling statement will shift the focus to either Andy and Sandy or Tony. A weak one will leave Greg with the egg.
In a few hours we will see whether the last twenty-four hours holed up on his property with friends and lawyers has produced for McGuire both a plausible story and a compelling presentation.