Peter Dunne Given the recent exchanges between United Future leader Peter Dunne and the apostate Gordon Copeland and Larry Baldock of Future New Zealand, some might be feeling confused. It's like this, according to Dunne and UFNZ President Denise Krum. United Future has experienced some resignations, but on the other hand, there have also been reports of new members, presumably driven away by Baldock and Copeland's moralising. United Future is in no danger of imminent collapse. Judy Turner has stated that she will be remaining with Dunne, but given current polling, won't be back to join him in 2008. Larry Baldock begs to differ. Not only Baldock and Copeland, but several UFNZ board members and previous UFNZ candidates will be joining Future New Zealand, which is still the party's tentative name, pending resolution of questions about the ownership and intellectual (?) property rights to the Future New Zealand logo, name and other components of the party brand. Baldock opines that the re-establishment of FNZ has crippled UFNZ, and will plunge its membership below the five hundred member mark that is the threshold for Electoral Commission registration under MMP. Mind you, only disgruntled ex-FNZ members who left because they didn't like the United/FNZ merger showed up to the inaugural FNZ relaunch meeting in Tauranga. Who should one believe? Regardless, perhaps Mr Dunne now remembers Christopher Marlowe's cautionary play about the sad fate of Doctor Faustus. The aggrieved academic sold his soul to the devil, only to be dragged off to the infernal regions twenty five years later on expiry of contract. Similarly, poor Mr Dunne sold his constituency to the metaphorical equivalent in return for FNZ's infrastructure, but neglected to read his sixteenth century master playwright thoroughly. He can take comfort from Goethe's Faust, though, in which the hell-bound academic repents of his misdealings and duly gets reprieved. Perhaps he should seek 'salvation' and relaunch United himself as a separate entity? Craig Young - 7th June 2007