KEY POINTS:
Michael Cullen is wrong.
I dislike saying this; I have a lot of respect for him. Mostly for getting up in the morning and coming to work, so knackered is he looking these days, but I have to disagree with him on one point.
John Key is not
a scumbag. I wasn't at all surprised to hear the National Party leader described thus by Dr Cullen; it's a well known fact that the Deputy PM is the possessor of a tongue that draws blood, but he's barking up the wrong tree this time.
The leader of the National Party doesn't possess any of the distinguishing characteristics of a scumbag. He doesn't sell drugs, break into cars or cheat on your sister. I'm not even sure he can roll and light a cigarette with one hand.
As you can see I have very specific and somewhat idiosyncratic ideas about what constitutes a scumbag. Feel free to insert your own definition. I know you'll find John Key falls short of it.
He's likeable. He's reasonably young, totally loaded and always says "hello" to you like he means it. What's not to like? He's a friendly guy as well. Just check out the photos. There he is, earlier this year, grinning away on his state-house safari in Auckland's McGehan Close, or more recently at Scott Base in Antarctica, silhouetted against the snowy vastness, smiling gamely with what appears to be a possum on his head. Is that the picture of a scumbag, I ask you? Certainly not.
Somebody's intrepid, if slightly demented, explorer uncle? Perhaps. A born to rule prick (another of Cullen's pearlers)? Maybe. But a scumbag? Hardly. This is a guy who's in hot water for ripping off a Coldplay riff in his promo video, for goodness sake. Doing that bunch of bedwetters out of a big fat royalty cheque is laudable certainly, but not exactly rock 'n' roll.
I'm sorry to hear that the DVD has had to be recalled though. Obviously Honest John hasn't had a very successful year if he's reduced to travelling the length of the country shopping his own image by hand. And now thanks to a production stuff-up, all of that hard work has gone to waste and he's left looking pretty silly.
Key can't really afford a gaffe like this heading into an election year. I feel a bit sorry for him. He's a reasonably charismatic leader, he comes to politics having proven his mettle as a mega-successful international businessman and manages a remarkably bloodless ascension to power in a party renowned for its messy coups. He's articulate, and his reasonableness has helped to put to rest the damaging miasma of far-right ideology that swirled around his predecessor.
In any other political climate this leader of the Opposition would be a total shoo-in for PM come next year. But alas for Key, the benevolent dictatorship under which we currently prosper is going to be a hard habit to break. Sure we may bitch and moan about the current crowd, but at the end of three terms the fact of the matter is we've gotten used to being told what to do. We're a pretty biddable lot on the whole. It helps that we've got one of the highest employment rates in the OECD, and that we're awash with disposable income (never mind it's mostly borrowed), not to mention the fact most of us are too obsessed with buying a house to actually care much what the Government's up to.
Helen Clark has devoted much time and energy to ensuring Labour is perceived as the natural party of government. It's going to take more than a personable nature to wrest the reins of power from Auntie Helen and Co. Mixups like the DVD shambles take on a greater importance in this context. Key's people need to up their game.
Of course the deeper question of why on Earth one would even want to appropriate the dreary dirges of Chris Martin and co for promotional purposes has gone unanswered.
As someone who's never heard a Coldplay album I didn't want to take a hammer to, I wonder at National's choice. Do their strategists actually WANT voters to think about Key and Chris Martin in tandem?
They do have a few things in common. Chris Martin has made heaps of money. So has John Key. Chris Martin is earnest and says lots of right-on, but ultimately meaningless things. So does John Key! Coldplay videos often feature Chris Martin walking along a beach. A new John Key DVD features John Key walking along a beach!
True, he hasn't married a stuck-up movie star, and his children have quite reasonable names, but the similarities between John Key and Chris Martin are too striking to ignore. Has anybody checked that they aren't actually the same person?
Until I see Martin there in person, banging out Clocks on the old Johanna at the next National Party conference, I won't be convinced.