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For seven years, he has been the man married to the woman who runs New Zealand, an unassuming figure at Helen Clark’s side as she claimed a succession of election victories.
Now Peter Davis has been thrust into the spotlight that he shuns, with the quietly spoken sociology professor at the centre of a political sleaze scandal engulfing both main parties.
Ms Clark was forced to take the extraordinary step last weekend of denying that her husband was gay, after photographs were published of Mr Davis being embraced and kissed by one of the couple’s oldest friends, Ian Scott, an Auckland MP who is openly homosexual.
The Prime Minister said the clinch was entirely innocent - Dr Scott, who was “reasonably boisterous and drunk” at the time, was one of hundreds of supporters who attended her post election party at Labour Party headquarters last year.
She made plain who she believed was behind the smear campaign: the opposition National Party, and its leader, Don Brash, who is fighting for his own political life amid allegations of an extramarital affair.
New Zealanders, unaccustomed to their politicians plumbing such depths, are riveted and horrified in equal measure. With no end to the muckraking in sight, Television New Zealand reported that “MPs across the political spectrum are calling on each other to pull back from the brink of what’s being seen as a descent into the kind of tabloid exposure of politicians’ personal lives seen in Britain and the United States”.
One political scientist, Ray Miller, warned that “once you start down this slippery slope of sleaze and counter-sleaze, there are no winners”.
While Mr Davis is the last person that New Zealanders would expect to see caught up in a gay sex storm, Mr Brash is an equally unlikely lothario. The 65-year-old was governor of the country’s Reserve Bank before entering politics in 2002, and - despite revealing that he was a conscientious objector in his youth and demonstrated against visits by the South African rugby team - he has struggled to convince voters that he has much charisma.
That all changed last week after Mr Brash was challenged by one of his own MPs in relation to rumours circulating about an affair with a wealthy Auckland businesswoman, Diane Foreman. The National leader refused to confirm or deny it. But after the discussion was leaked to a newspaper, he took two days’ leave, saying that he hoped to sort out “difficulties” in his marriage.
Things had already got dirty before then. For the previous few weeks, the Nationals had been accusing Labour, which has governed New Zealand since 1999, of misusing parliamentary funds in their campaign for last year’s election. Two Labour MPs retaliated by making veiled threats to reveal details of the private lives of National MPs.
When Mr Brash rose in parliament to answer a question, he was taunted by one of Ms Clark’s cabinet ministers, Trevor Mallard, who called out: “How’s Diane this week?”
Mr Brash then mentioned the “Phillip Field affair”, referring to a Labour MP alleged to have taken bribes in exchange for helping people with immigration applications. Mr Mallard interjected, loudly: “Speaking of affairs…”
Ms Clark laughed off criticism of Mr Mallard. Until, that is, her own family became a target. On Sunday, after articles about her husband’s sexuality had appeared, she said: “Trevor Mallard’s behaviour was deplorable and should not be repeated. Trevor went off the deep end. I don’t condone it. I condemn all those personal attacks.”
The Prime Minister, a former academic sometimes accused of lacking passion, was in a cold fury after two mainstream newspapers, the Sunday Star-Times and Dominion Post, reported rumours about the relationship between Mr Davis and Dr Scott.
The articles appeared in advance of a report today in an offbeat current affairs magazine, Investigate, which has run a series of stories about Mr Davis and published the photograph of him being kissed by Dr Scott, who is a former Labour Party candidate.
Ms Clark said that the “vile, baseless lies” had been spread “quite cheerfully” by the National Party. She called on the Nationals to “call off the dogs”, saying: “I cannot think of anything lower in public life.”
While the National Party denied being behind the whispering campaign and even expressed sympathy for Ms Clark, she linked it to a lunch between Mr Brash and a gossip columnist with the Dominion Post, Bridget Saunders.
Ms Clark also claimed that a right-wing Christian sect, the Exclusive Brethren, was helping to spread the smear stories, accusing it of hiring private investigators to follow her and her husband around in an effort to dig up some scandal.
The Brethren, which funded a $500,000 (pounds 180,000) pamphlet campaign in support of the Nationals at the last election, denied it. But as Mr Brash and his wife, Je Lan, appeared in public last night for the first time since news of his alleged affair broke, stepping out together at the launch of New Zealand Fashion Week, there were signs of more dirt to come.
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