Tauranga MP announces “deeply personal” memoir

Tauranga MP Simon Bridges is releasing a book later this year. File Image. SunLive.

Tauranga MP and former National party leader Simon Bridges is releasing a book later this year but is keen to stress that it is not a strictly political memoir, or a sign of any potential opposing party leadership challenge.

Bridges announced the release on his Twitter account this week, with the book entitled ‘National Identity: Confessions of an Outsider'.

Bridges is keen to keep the details of the book relatively close to his chest but did open up briefly about what might be overleaf in discussion with the press gallery in Wellington.

'I've put my heart and soul into this book. I am really excited about it and I hope New Zealanders will really enjoy it,” he says.

'Ultimately, it is a deeply personal look at our national character and what makes us New Zealanders.”

Bridges reveals that his whakapapa forms a 'big part” of the book's premise and that he hopes people reading the book will get an insight into why he calls himself an 'outsider”.

He also clarifies that he made it clear to National Party leader Judith Collins, who herself published a book entitled ‘Pull No Punches' last year, of his intention to release a memoir.

Amid speculation the book could preclude a bid to become leader of the National Party again Bridges suggests the opposite.

'This isn't a book you would write if you want to become leader of the National Party.

'I think it is open, it's honest, at times intensely personal. There is stuff in it that is absolutely against my interests.

'I enjoyed writing it but it is not necessarily stuff you would write if you were trying to become leader again.”

The book is being published by HarperCollins and will be released on August 18.

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