Is there anything left to say? With the two main parties slogging it out I’m thinking that you’re all probably as keen as me to see the whole thing come to an end. The policy roll-out continues apace, and we’re starting to get a glimmer of the National Party’s main tactic.
With everyone but Hide locked out in the cold, excepting Dunne mind you, ‘those who know things’ are murmuring that the drive is to isolate all the minor parties if at all possible and govern without having to cut deals, placate whining minority groups, or handle difficult issues tenderly.
You know, all that stuff that makes politics what it is.
Of course, if they do get 61 seats on their own, there’s still the problem of grumpy or bolshie backbenchers, as Howard knows all too well from Australia. Maybe they can just clap them in irons, or discredit such backbenchers, the way that Howard has done all too often with dissenters.
That said, National appears to be staying the course in this regard, and is playing hard ball harder than a no-doubt slightly tired and pissed off Helen Clark did the other day. Pesky damn pilots, give a man a high-speed vehicle and the lives of dozens in his hands and the next thing you know he gets a god-complex.
Mind you, being scalded by the Leader of the Nation is something he gets to tell the other pilots in the bar. And bloody good on him.
Anyhow, National and staying the course. An image occurred to me that best describes what they’re up to. With their single minded determination to charge out the biggest majority they can, a foray into toilet humour is probably best.
Picture a blue man then, maybe the leader of a party. And no, we’re not talking about Poppa Smurf, although the near-complete absence of women is an obvious similarity. And he’s sitting on the dunny.
Now, I know that’s a little distasteful to some, but bear with me. There he is, on the crapper, pants round his ankles. And, as we all know, you can’t go anywhere very fast when you’re in that position. Naturally, you’ll feel a little vulnerable.
Next, picture the toilet itself, person on or not, in a white-tiled room. White on the walls, white on the floor, white on the ceiling. White basins and shower. Now put blue man, with trousers round ankles, on the throne.
But, and here’s the catch, the room is very, very big. Although the dunny and the bathroom fixtures are all in fairly close proximity, the room itself is maybe four or five times bigger than a normal bathroom ought to be.
And the door is on the far side of the room, diagonally, from the blue man on the dunny.
Weird? It gets better.
There’s no lock on the door, and no way the blue man’s legs can stop anyone walking in on him taking a constitutional.
That’s the National Party right now.
They’re firing that big one out as fast as they can before someone walks in accidentally busts them having one. They’re out there on their own, with no-one keeping an eye on the door, and no-one willing to vouch that they’re up to nothing dodgy.
I’m of the opinion they’ll be half-way through the roll of paper, standing just slightly, a self-satisfied look on their face, when the electorate walks on in.