KEY POINTS:
Diddums is not a word you often hear in Parliament. But the playground putdown leaped off the Prime Minister's tongue yesterday with that paint stripper-like sarcasm that only Helen Clark can muster.
The target was John Key, who had been working up a new line of attack best
summarised as "Labour fiddles while the economy burns".
He had earlier road-tested it in front of reporters outside National's morning caucus meeting. He questioned why Labour was devoting so much energy to attacking him instead of addressing the rapid downturn in the economy and the ever-growing cost of going to the supermarket.
This brought a scathing response from Finance Minister Michael Cullen, who suggested Key "get used to the fact he's playing with the big boys now".
That did not deter Key from having another crack in Parliament in the afternoon. He first got one back on Cullen after Clark had rubbished National's plan to double Government funding to private schools.
Key was about to return fire when Cullen interjected that National's leader was the "MP for King's College". Referring to Cullen's schooldays at Christchurch's Christ's College while he attended nearby Burnside High, Key shot back: "Well, the member is the one who went to a private school."
Key then asked Clark if anyone in the Government was worried about the economy "or are they only interested in low-grade attacks on me". The Prime Minister's one-word response provided confirmation that Labour is not really worried what grading its attacks receive - just as long as they work.
National might well have retaliated by attaching the "diddums" label to Justice Minister Annette King, who was subject to further needling by Bill English on the continuing fiasco otherwise known as the Electoral Finance Act. Sounding a bit like Key, she wondered if National was interested in anything but the act.
English had been busy exploiting Labour's latest embarrassment - the rumbling of its intention to use promotional advertising produced by Government departments for electioneering purposes.
Rather than answer his questions, King variously dismissed them as "total rubbish" or "made-up stories". At one point, she took cover in ministerial responsibility not extending to the Labour Party.
When the blame for the idea of distributing pamphlets produced by the likes of Work and Income was laid at the door of Labour president Mike Williams, she veered off on a lengthy discourse about people sometimes saying things they don't reallymean, ending up with National's Maurice Williamson's infamous remark about "fat people not being seen in concentration camps".
Try as she might, King could not shift the focus off Labour, with English next cleverly recalling the adaptation of Kenny Rogers' The Gambler "sung" by four Labour woman MPs on-stage at Labour's congress last weekend.
The jury is out on whether this musically challenged attack on Key has backfired on Labour. With his tongue lodged firmly in his cheek, English wondered if the posting of the performance on YouTube made it an election advertisement backing Labour and thus requiring authorisation. Or was it an attack on Labour and therefore not requiring authorisation?
