Is Paul Henry the Answer?
Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na.
And all the juvie halls
And the Ritalin rats
Ask angels made from neon
And fucking garbage
Scream out, "What will save us?"
And the sky opened up
Songwriters: Ray Toro / Frank Iero / Gerard Way / Michael Way / Bob Bryar.
UPDATE: I’ve opened this to everyone. Thanks so much to my supporters.
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I thought it was bad enough when they made Paul Henry the host of the TV series The Traitors; he came across as a pompous git, in love with himself and, weirdly, under the impression that others felt the same way about him. I don’t think there was any acting involved.
But now he is going to run for parliament, and if this guy is the answer, then for the love of God, what on earth was the question?
Was it: name a local presenter who was well known about fifteen years ago, before the Television gods realised that sniggering like precious pup over the name Sheila Dikshit, questioning whether Governor General Sir Anand Satyanand was “even a New Zealander”, and mocking a woman from Greenpeace, laughing about the lady with a moustache, weren’t funny any more, even if some in his audience thought they were.
That guy wants to be a cabinet minister - that guy! And based on the polls, he might well get his way. Ladies and gentlemen, we have well and truly gone through the looking glass.
Seriously, with Michael Laws standing for Winston and Paul Henry being catapulted into parliament by ACT, what’s next? Sean Plunket? How about Cameron Slater? Or why not go the whole hog and get Mike Hosking to run for National? He’s been working for them for years; why not make it official?
I posted:
OMG, after all the right-wing nut cases signed up for Winston, Seymour says, "Hold my shandy". What a contrast between the awesome candidates coming through for Labour and the Greens and the absolute dross the coalition parties are digging up.
The comments ranged from abject horror to mild surprise that Mr Henry was still alive, with most people seeing it for what it was, a headline to focus on rather than the stench of more crimes by former ACT President Tim Jago.
What do you do if you know you’re about to hit the headlines again over your ex-President, who is a convicted paedophile? You’re not doing well in the polls, and it might remind people that you kept the news of his charges mighty quiet at the last election, almost as if your rhetoric about cracking down on crime only applied to other people? You need a distraction…
So we have Paul Henry. Is that what ACT think of us? I know they’re not exactly flush with high-calibre candidates, and they will only gain by promoting someone articulate and intelligent over their current crop of backbenchers, but really?
A snorting hyena of a man who sniggers at racist jokes that stopped being funny forty years ago and who is undertaking some sort of late middle-life crisis over his growing irrelevance. Couldn’t he just buy a sports car as a reminder of his virility before the little blue pills? Does he really need to get his kicks out of punching down on the poor and making life even better for people like him?
ACT called a press conference to announce their new candidate on Tuesday after the party's board had confirmed his candidacy, how very democratic.
Seymour said that his new pal Henry would get an “electable and respectable position”, presumably unlike some of his current caucus who will move down a position to make way for the prodigal grandfather. This is on top of the fact that, according to polling, a few of them will already be losing their jobs.
Henry resigned from the TVNZ board that morning, and everyone said, “Well, that’s alright then.”
Just like they didn’t when Superintendent Rakesh Naidoo announced he was standing for Labour and the coalition lost their minds as if he was going to give away their secret crime-fighting plans, despite them failing to even hire the police officers they promised.
There were demands for investigations into Naidoo’s activities during the period he had been in discussions with Labour, and now ACT is doing the same, but nobody is demanding to know what Paul Henry did at TVNZ prior to resigning, despite there being a far greater conflict of interest in Henry being on the TVNZ board while in discussions with ACT at a time when the state broadcaster was under immense pressure to show the government in a better light than the facts might actually support.
Henry, of course, thinks that smaller government is the answer to all the problems, you know, like wealthy people having to contribute their fair share. But he also delivered a surprise policy that he hadn’t even bothered to run by Seymour prior to the press conference - a world-class cancer hospital in New Zealand, which he said would be worth “multibillions”.
David acted as if it were quite normal for a new candidate to announce a multi-billion-dollar policy on the fly, and smiled about his distraction and about having someone in the caucus who at least gives the impression of having passed School C.
Let’s be honest, Paul Henry might well be obnoxious in many ways, but if you had to have a beer with one of the ACT team, he’d be the one. Or maybe you fancy a pint with Andrew Hoggard, Simon Court, or, well, any of the others…
The truth is, Henry has far more ability to hold an audience than almost anyone on the coalition side of the house, and people will listen to him.
This creates a problem for Christopher Luxon because the boost ACT gets as a result of having the prat in the sports coat all over the media saying that National have bottled it will primarily come from his party.
Couple that with more environmentally concerned National supporters looking at the Blue-Green TOP, and NZ First plugging away with nationalism bordering on xenophobia and their anti-woke crusade, which will mostly attract voters from National, and there is a good chance that Luxon’s party may slip further in the polls.
Which can, in itself, lead to voters looking elsewhere as they try to second-guess what will happen, and that is the last thing Luxon wants.
It’s going to be quite an election, folks.
Have a good Thursday, and take care, all you lovely people.
Ngā mihi,
Nick.
To end today, it’s My Chemical Romance with Na Na Na, and then some more Nas.
I've opened this one up to everyone now.
I've corrected NZ First's "anti-work" crusade to be "anti-woke" and updated the day of the week - dohh! It was a late night write.