Roll Up! Roll Up!

All the fun of the circus.

“Doot-doot-doodle-oodle oot doot do do”, the music rings out around the fairground. You flick off your shoes and enjoy the warm sweaty grass on your bare feet, feels good after a long winter. A plastic bag of candy floss, a hot dog oozing sauce and off to the Big Top. No caged tigers these days, more likely young Chinese contortionists. At least the big cats have been freed.

The seats are excellent, just one row back from the centre ring. A clown in a peddle car circles the stage occasionally leering at the audience and then laughing to himself. The lighting changes, the seating area darkens, and a spotlight falls upon the lone figure climbing out of his car and picking up a bucket in the centre of the tent.

Image: LightXEditor.

“Does anybody need cooling off?”, cackles the clown through a microphone. It’s very hot in the tent, some of the kids put their hands up. “This is an ice cold bucket full of truth, are you ready?” The kids cheer and yell out “yes”.

“In this bucket is proof of how the lady you thought was a good queen fooled this poor old clown. That’s what she did, she fooled us.” Some of the children booed. “Are you ready for it, can you handle all this truth?”, “yes”, “well here it comes!”

At that point the clown walks toward you and thrusts the bucket in your direction, to make the contents fly out. But there is nothing, not a drop. You remain dry and hot. Meanwhile around you some other people are yelling about how wet they are, how they’ve been soaked to the bone by the clown’s bucket of truth, and now they see it all clearly. Some of them are quite angry and are demanding answers.

But there was no bucket of truth, there was just an old clown tweeting things that were not true. Silly old clown. Has he decided the shape of the next government yet?

If you didn’t see the mischief last night you’ve probably read or heard about it today. But in case you didn’t, last night Winston Peters, the nation’s kingmaker, tweeted to the world his bucket full of truth.

Apparently Winston Peters, in his pre clown career as the deputy Prime Minister, was the last person on Earth to find out that that evil piece of sub human scum had emailed his manifesto of hate to the Prime Minister. As well as to others, like then National Party leader Simon Bridges.

Immediately people replied saying that was some class ‘A’ bullshit. That the Prime Minister had spoken openly about it in the days after NZ’s worst ever terrorist attack. Not only that but it had been widely reported in media around the world, just the day after the attack. Turns out everyone knew except the old clown. Even the evil Dr X put a disclaimer under his preposterous lie.

But some in the crowd said no, that bucket was full of the truth and the clown was the only one spraying it about the place. Like an incontinent rescue cat.

The clown’s circus had attracted an audience far more cooked that those sweltering in a sticky Big Top. Even though most people were saying the bucket was dry as a bone, others welcomed the relief from heat.

The clown knew his audience. But why was he emptying his bucket on them now?

Having seen New Zealand First’s election manifesto I’d have thought he’d be really busy turning that brainfart of bullet points into some actual policies he could bring to negotiations.

Image: Newstalk ZB.

So why does Winston, in this period between the election and the final results, want to attack Jacinda Ardern and the government that he was the deputy leader of?

These are the possibilities I can think of:

• Winston is further distancing himself from the last government in preparation for a National/NZF coalition being sold to the public as the change they voted for.

• There is a possibility of another election if things reach an impasse, and he wants to reinforce his alternate reality credentials with voters.

• He can’t remember it happening.

That’s about it. So far as I can tell Winston is either a colossal liar, feeling no shame in being seen as such by the sane segment of society. Or he has lost touch with reality. And this is the man who’ll likely have a major say in the policies and priorities of our next government. Throw the bucket of water on me now.

Let’s give Winston the benefit of the doubt, maybe the facts just slipped his mind. Everyone deserves a second chance, so how would Winston react to his blatant falsehood? Apparently by doubling down.

Apparently the Prime Minister, by not explicitly telling Winston every piece of publicly available information, had been guilty of hiding the truth in plain sight.

To be fair it’s a ballsy move.

I mean I knew Jacinda was brave but this is something else. Imagine having the gumption to hide an important piece of information from your deputy and coalition partner by brazenly talking about it in a press conference and seeing it reported around the globe. Cunning eh?

I hope someone remembered to tell him about that laboratory in Wuhan.

There will be lots of words written about this, conversations had. The one I want to be a fly on the wall for is Christopher Luxon explaining to David Seymour that he’s gotten to know Winston, and he’s not so bad after all. He’s the kind of guy we can do business with.

I almost feel sorry for Seymour. Yeah right!

Joking aside this is pretty messed up. It’s bad enough that the loved ones of the 51 innocent people murdered by that hateful lunatic are having to go through this inquest. I understand a process has to be followed so we learn, and improve the way we respond to such terrible events. Although from all I’ve read the police, other emergency services, and everyone involved, did all they possibly could.

Photo: www.telegraph.co.uk.

What is unacceptable is using this tragedy to score very cheap political points. Shame on you Winston, this one really is too much.

The last words are those of Federation of Islamic Associations of New Zealand (FIANZ) chairman Abdur Razzaq Khan. Who responded with all the grace and humility we have seen from the Islamic community ever since this horror.

“This is an age where tweets and social media can divert genuine public discourse - you can actually bring in misinformation and make it the fact… Whether he apologises or not, we still respect him - he’s a political leader. We expect a lot more from him.”

And so should we all.

One of my favourite pieces of music. My daughter used to dance a solo to it and it makes me pretty teary remembering that. But in a good way.