If you like your politics served with a side of theatre, gall and irreverence, you can’t go past Shane Jones on the menu.

He’s a compelling political figure. Bombastic. Rogish. Outrageously entertaining. And often just outrageous. What a bland and colourless political landscape we’d have, without such characters.

Jones is under fire yet again, for allegedly spruiking the Provincial Growth Fund to buy votes.

A bunch of anonymous complainants have accused Jones of telling attendees at a forestry awards function that they need to vote for him, if they don’t want to miss out on the billions of dollars the PGF provides.

One pursed-lipped complainant has slammed his language as an inducement to bribery.

Others have blasted Jones for hijacking the awards event, turning it into a political rally and hunting for votes.

Jones is unrepentant, doubling down on his belief that the forestry sector should acknowledge what his party has managed to extract from Labour, for their benefit. “If you want it, back it”, he says.

Never a man to beat around the bush.

He’s blunt, not nuanced. Which is why the pressure will now be on the Prime Minister to pull him into line, constitutionally, as a Minister of the Crown.

But as much as Shane Jones is a self-styled sugar-daddy to the provinces and the primary sector, isn’t he merely stating the obvious? He wants their votes.

The Provincial Growth Fund was a brilliantly crafted prize for New Zealand First to shamelessly showcase.

It’s a funding gusher that keeps them connected to the regions, enamoured by the regions, and potentially rewarded by the regions.

But all parties have their special interests to splash the spoils on.

Whether it’s tax breaks for the film industry, pandering to the arts, or non-commercial broadcasting, all parties play favourites and pick winners with the public purse.

The only offence Shane Jones has committed is in stating the truth, a little too overtly, in a Ministerial capacity. He’s been brutally upfront and brazenly honest about what his party expects in return.