Political Bloodsport

Every party has its cringe-inducing types. Some party lists are more cringe-inducing than others. The question is not whether the party has a potential embarrassment in their ranks, but the precise numbers of time-bombs that are just waiting to go off.

Take Brian Connell. National Party MP who succeeded Jenny Shipley in Rakaia, and then proceeded to announce in the middle of an election campaign, in 2002, that he intended to lead the National Party. Bold statement. Stupid statement. Cringeful statement.

There is a fine line between political naivety—the off-the-cuff comment made before one has learned the rigours of office and dangers of making stupid statements—and being stupid. It’s a fair call that Brian Connell ranks as downright stupid. Michelle Boag did the National Party a minor disservice when she didn’t throw her weight behind her namesake, Stu, to take over Jenny Shipley’s seat. To be fair to Michelle, she did more than redeem herself by bringing in Don Brash, John Key, Judith Collins, and Allan Peachey into the fold. Even with Brian Connell there, it’s hard to cringe at the Nats performance when they’ve got a stellar cast of superstars.

Act’s Muriel Newman is a nice enough lady. But not superbly sharp. Politically immensely stupid. A few years back, I was sitting in an Act MPs office, when Muriel wandered in, wanting some ideas on what to talk about during a slot she had in Parliament to discuss tariff reforms. I told her to go through the Tariff Schedule, and observe that while the Government imposed no tariff on the importation of nuclear reactors—which had a zero duty in the schedule—they were proposing to maintain a tariff on the importation of shoes. Muriel got quite excited at this, and went off to look at the schedule. Unfortunately, when it came to speaking in the House, she got slightly confused, and didn’t mention the shoes. Instead she proposed raising the tariff on nuclear reactors.

New Zealand First. Where do we start? Well, Winston holds his own. Ron Mark is a very solid performer. Brian Donnelly always knows his brief. And the list ends there. Simon Upton rated Doug Woollerton highly when the latter was his long-time electorate chairman in Raglan, but I’ve always found his slow, hokeyesque drawl to be deeply annoying. Useful in a party chairman to keep things in order by boring the elderly members off to sleep, rather than engage in a controversial remit. Peter Brown is a well-meaning guy, but has the intellectual grunt of a dead camel. Taking a stab at Dail Jones, he’s simply a git. The others I don’t know, but any party that nominates Jenny Bloxham among its ranks, at any stage, ever, has suffered enough cringe-inducing behaviour to last a lifetime. One aspect that Winston has managed well, however, to control the potential embarrassment, is to get them all to shut up. It works well.

I’m politically coloured with respect to the Greens. They all make me sick. Whether it’s Sue Kedgeley’s downright hypocrisy, Rod Donald’s slipperiness, or Keith Locke’s ideologically-driven fruitiness, I can’t honestly say that there is a single MP in their line-up who I could dine with. Ian Ewen-Street was a nice guy, but he got disillusioned with the Greens’ socialist agenda. Jeanette Fitzsimons is far too stupid to ever run a political party. Rod Donald knows this, which is why he runs it. And that is very disturbing, if the Greens and Labour are ever in a position to form a Government. Labour don’t trust Donald, and rightfully so. They trust Jeanette, because she’s too naïve to understand what Government’s doing. But with Rod behind her, Labour—and the country—are in deep trouble.

Jim Anderton’s platitudes used to make me irate. Now it’s his downright tedium that is so frustrating. He makes me cringe.

And now for the Labour Party. Phil Goff, Damien O’Connor, and John Tamihere are the only ones I’d have over to dinner. Paul Swain, Mark Peck and on a good day, Michael Cullen, I’d stop in the street to chat to them. On a bad day I’d push Paul Swain over, inject booze into Mark Peck, and punch out Dr Cullen. I would harangue them all for selling their souls for being part of such a regrettable bunch of drop-kicks that includes such lecherous and/or pathetic political specimens as Steve Maharey, Parekura Horomia, Marion Hobbes, Judith Tizard, Dover Samuels, Jill Pettis, Darren Hughes, Mahara Okeroa, Ann Hartley, Helen Duncan, Dave Hereroa, Nanaia Mahuta, and Dianne Yates. I mean, really. What a sad, sorry bunch of losers they are.

And among that Hall of Inane, we must add Labour’s candidate for Pakuranga. Michael Wood is a classic example of the mediocrity that infects Labour today. You can even see his blog, at www.woodm.blogspot.com , to get a clear feel for the absolute banality that plagues the Labour Party list. They are not the great intellectuals, the keen debaters, the achievers of Modern New Zealand. No, dear readers. They are union hacks, with no concept of economic reality. This is the best that Labour can bring out, and it is a savage indictment on the party of superstars that David Lange once led.

On the bright side, Michael brings entertainment to this election, for the simple reason that he is just so weak. He is easy pickings. On-line, his defence and explanations for Government inaction come across as a minor party apparatchik using the standard propaganda that he’s too thick to understand.

Oh, how I would love to go to a Pakuranga electorate meeting and launch into him. You know. Make him cry. Teach him an important lesson about the real world: that if he’s ever going to contemplate a serious political career, then he needs to harden up, get smart, and think real.

Michael, of course, is not alone. On Labour’s list this year, only one new candidate stands out, and that is Louisa Wall. Even then, her only distinction is that she’s photogenic, and in that sense, at least raises one of Labour’s exceptionally low standards just ever-so-slightly.

So I encourage you to go to your meet-the-candidate meetings. Ask tricky questions of Labour’s candidates. Get them to explain why Labour MPs lie so much about what National is doing; why Labour offered such a shitty budget, and is now bribing non-taxpayers with taxpayers money.

Yes, folks. Watch the fuckers squirm. And don’t let them off the hook. Quiz them about Maori excesses, about the wananga, about the sad and sorry state of tertiary and secondary education, about what has happened to the $16 billion of extra tax revenue that the Government has collected this year over 1999, and just when Labour is going to admit that it’s hard-working taxpayers, and people with initiative and creativity who make a strong economy, and not Michael Cullen.

Grill them. Take them apart on every issue. That is the beauty of democracy. And Labour will learn that it can’t simply pass off such a pedestrian bunch of losers onto the electorate again.