By: Barry Soper | Monday, May 07, 2012 6:07 AM

Banksie's biographer's sharpening his pencil, looking at writing a final chapter and he'll be able to write it with an insider's perspective.

The prim and proper Paul Goldsmith was Banksie's spin doctor when he was a minister in the 90s and penned 'John Banks - A Biography' in 1997. Goldsmith was also the Tory candidate for Epsom who was left reading the tea leaves after the two Johns had their very public, private cuppa tea during the last election campaign.

Goldsmith was in the unusual position of having to tell voters to vote for Banksie as their constituent MP but for National with their party vote.

Before the cuppa, Goldsmith looked pretty comfortable to take the seat.

With the kerfuffle over the past several weeks involving the Dotcom donations Banksie's no longer the flavour of the month in Epsom, in fact an opinion poll says that only ten percent of the voters there would cast their ballot in favour of him, down from the 44 percent who gave him the nod at the last election.

Almost half the voters are now saying they've got a lower opinion of him because of the donations saga and his claims that he knew nothing about who was pumping the money into his failed Mayoral campaign.

And even his cuppa tea buddy wouldn't be able to save his bacon if there was a by election in the Auckland seat. Almost three quarters of the Herald poll respondents said an endorsement from State Homie John Key to vote for Banksie would no longer cut the mustard.

The Homie must now be ruing the day he even had the cuppa tea and how wrong Banksie was on the day telling Key that his stars were in alignment. In fact the star signs obviously weren't good at all, Key could have stuck with his own candidate and he wouldn't have to deal with ACT today. Trouble is he thought the party would bring in more MPs than just Banksie.

So Banksie's very much on his own at the moment but he's showing no signs of chucking the towel in yet.

His electoral returns showing the large number of anonymous donations were above board he tells us, loftily adding that he's a Justice of the Peace, which presumably means his word's beyond question.

But then to become a JP, all you need is the patronage of a politician!