Love him or hate him, David Lange was one of the cleverest, wittiest, most erudite and distinctive politicians ever to grace the world stage.
He died, after some years of great suffering from an incurable plasma disorder, amyloidosis, on 13th August.
Larger than life - at least as clever as his formidably smart "big brother" rivals from the Australian left(ish), Gough Whitlam and Paul Keating, and famed for making wee New Zealand's mark on the world map (most noteably by making NZ a nuclear free zone, and hence not allowing ANY American warships into NZ harbours, since the USA has a policy of not saying which of its ships are nuclear powered - an action which brought down America's wrath, and even pissed off Australia, because of the threat it created to the ANZUS treaty, and probably cos our left was way wussier on the issue) he is a great loss to the world of politics - though he had retired some years ago.
And he defeated the egregiously awful NZ troglodyte and street-fighter smart buffoon, "Piggy" Muldoon. Yay!!!!
A Goliath sized New Zealand David. I'm gonna miss you - warts, controversy and all.
May the wind be ever at your back, David.
Personal recollection from Scoop - a NZ news service:
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0508/S00109.htm
Wikipedia entry:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Lange
http://www.primeminister.govt.nz/oldpms/1984lange.html
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/index.cfm?c_id=1&ObjectID=10340844
He was one of the few (perhaps the only politician?) who could be spot on in his utterances, yet make one laugh out loud at the same time. And I like his politics, too. (apart from the GST & economic rationalist stuff). There was something very brave & right about the way he stood up to the US. And to France, over the Rainbow Warrior incident. Bravo NZ, Bravo David Lange! The mouse that roared! A class act. 
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