One constant is the denials by the ‘anti’ brigade of any linkage between John ‘The Pom’ Shrimpton, the failed meat sector ginger group MIE and political party NZ First. They carefully argue there is “no known contact” between the groups. This is despite the fact that the former MIE chair John McCarthy is a director of Shrimpton’s farm, that Shrimpton’s co-requisitioner Blair Gallagher is a former MIE executive and is now MIE’s former spin-doctor ($40k got paid out for communications), that Clare Bayly did the PR for the Shrimpton group and that Shrimpton himself helped write MIE’s failed ‘Pathway Report’. All the while, Winston Peters’ taxpayer funded staffer David Broome is donkey-deep in trying to gain media exposure against the deal. Your old mate says people can dress it up all they want, but putting lipstick on a pig does not hide the fact that it is still a pig.