Winston Peters had no option when it came to sacking Phil Goff from his job as High Commissioner in London, but that doesn’t mean I’m happy with it.  

I think he’s done the right thing. But he’s done the wrong thing, as well.  

Because it just shows how scaredy-cat the world is of Donald Trump. But we better get used to it – this is how it’s going to be for the next four years.   

That’s why I accept that it needed to be done, but it’s still pretty cruddy that we are running scared of him like this.

What Goff did was he let the political nerd in him come out when he was at an event at Chatham House, in London, earlier this week. And it looked like it was some sort of Q&A session involving Finland’s Foreign Affairs Minister.

The significance of Finland, of course, is that it shares a border with Russia.  

So Phil Goff had the roving microphone, and he asked Elina Valtonen whether she thought Donald Trump understood the history of the second world war.

That’s because people are likening what Trump is doing with Ukraine to what happened in 1938, when Nazi Germany was allowed to get its hands on land in Czechoslovakia in a bid to avoid war.   

It was a deal signed in 1938, but, as we know, a year later Germany still went to war.  

Phil Goff isn’t the first person to say it. And on the face of it, it doesn’t seem that outrageous, but in diplomatic circles, it was probably enough to have them spilling their G&Ts.  

And it was certainly enough for Foreign Minister Winston Peters to tell his people in London to give Phil Goff the flick.

Winston Peters says the reason he did it was because Goff’s comments “do not represent the views of the New Zealand government and make his position as High Commissioner to London untenable.”  

And former High Commissioner Sir Lockwood Smith agrees. He’s in no doubt that Winston Peters has done the right thing to minimise any damage.   

Phil Goff was due to finish his posting later this year, but that could have been extended, of course. But he’s over there right now and all the diplomatic crew will be chattering.   

So it will be very embarrassing for Goff. Not the way he would’ve wanted to go out.  

Especially, given that as far as I’m aware, it’s the first time New Zealand has sacked a High Commissioner.   

Yes, he was being a bit of a smart-alec, something you’re not supposed to be when you move around in diplomatic circles. Which is a tension that Sir Lockwood talked about when he was on Newstalk ZB this morning.  

He was saying that when you’ve been a politician, it can sometimes be difficult to take your political hat off. But he reckons that his time as speaker before being a High Commissioner helped prepare him for that.  

Maybe that’s why we’re not hearing about former speaker Trevor Mallard putting his foot in it over in Ireland, where he’s High Commissioner.  

But perhaps Phil Goff can take some comfort from Dr Stephen Winter, who is an international relations expert at Auckland University. He’s says if things weren’t so on edge around the world, Goff might have got away with it.   

He says: "Goff can take comfort from the fact that he is right, even though he was not diplomatic.”  

But things are on edge, and Goff is off.  

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