Coughlan gets cross

Talk has been flying around the corridors of the City Council that Jo Coughlan has had a nasty altercation with confirmed Mayoral candidate John Morrison.

Word is that Coughlan still rates her slim chances of beating Celia Wade-Bicycle and that she was infuriated that Morrison has beaten her to the punch. We have heard from several sources that Coughlan, confronted Morrison and attempted to bully him out of the race.

What this shows is Coughlan’s true colours as a born-to-rule-Karori-Tory. She will have it in her mind that despite the extreme odds against her, she deserves to be Mayor. Coughlan may well play nice in public but clearly behind the PR facade there is a ruthless self-interested streak.

As we have blogged before, Coughlan has a low profile (hell, we have found that even a google image search for her is limited!) and she does not stand much of a realistic chance. But also, I have my doubts that she would be any good even if she were competitive.

Coughlan is the economic development portfolio lead for the Council. Granted, she does operate within the policy confines set by the Green/left leadership cohort and no doubt has her work heavily vetted and edited by Iona Rasputin. But if the Wellington economy is dying then Coughlan must have some level of responsibility. At the very least, she could have shown leadership and spoken out on the issue, setting a vision for what needs to happen.  Where was the rebuttal to John Key? Surely that was an opportunity to tell us all about the good work she was doing to turn things around? Instead we had silence, which speaks volumes.