Eating Like Kings

Slippery Seymour evades Jack Tame.

You know that it's a snake eat snake world
We slither and serpentine through
We all took a bite, and six thousand years later
These apples getting harder to chew

Songwriters: Shawn Mavrides.

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“Please be Jack Tame”, I thought when I saw it was Seymour appearing on Q&A. I’d had a guts full of the man, which, as the obvious punchline goes, is more than many of our kids have gotten from him.

Still, if I was going to listen to the now familiar tale of late deliveries, food that doesn’t meet the dietary requirements, or nutritional needs beyond the barest of minimums, I wanted someone who would ask tough questions.

We all have bad days. Tame has had a few; the Israeli Ambassador springs to mind, but at his best, and in the absence of a Kim, a Mihingarangi, or a Susie, he’s the guy you want.

Even John Campbell had a shocker that time he ran an election debate. If you remember, it didn’t make him a bad journalist overnight, although, to be fair, he didn’t just sit there listening to justifications for genocide.

But Seymour is a tough interview, where Luxon will go red and start to dither, perhaps even angering. Seymour sits emotionally unmoved by proceedings and smiles as if everything is okay.

You might be pointing out a large mess on the studio floor that he himself deposited (if this is too gross, keep in mind it’s only an analogy for his school lunches). Seymour sits placidly as you point it out and mouths platitudes about things improving, even though no one else thinks they are and things are decidedly whiffy.

The show arrived. Tame was fresh back from parental leave, presumably well-rested (that was a joke), and prepared with tough questions, while Seymour was ready to avoid answering them.

Image: Q&A.

I hoped Tame would ask Seymour if he would resign; he ought to. If you look across the performance of his backbenchers, the Treaty Principles Bill, the Department of Red Tape Removal, or his disgusting school meals, it has been an unmitigated disaster, and if he were from a party of the left, the NZ Herald would be running daily headlines demanding his sacking. I wasn’t hopeful.

Tame began by asking if the opposition's accusations that he was deliberately tanking the programme because he fundamentally disagreed with the policy were correct. It seemed a fair question. There were no obvious signs that providing kids with good food had been a priority; at best, it seemed like a secondary consideration to saving money.