Sun loving Skinks and a Spartan existence.
The great and smiley leader (2.0) had seen the latest poll and he was feeling rather pleased.
He’d been aware he hadn’t really done much yet and wasn’t sure how he’d differentiated himself from the last leader, other than by being a man and not really a politician. And here he was, only a few percentage points swing from being the next Prime Minister. His boyhood dream he noted having just finished checking his Wikipedia entry.
His good friend John had given sound advice. Look like you’re in charge and look wealthy, people want something to aspire to. The sun came out from behind a cloud and he basked in its warmth thinking how nice it was to be aspirational.
1.0 had given him some good advice - don’t take a stand, don’t die in a ditch over something unless it is a complete no-brainer and might get some of those swing voters in the middle. It seemed to him that voting to ban Gay Conversion Therapy was just such an opportunity.
What had the previous leader been doing making everyone vote against the ban? Sure she was scared of losing the support of the theocratic clique on the backbench but they were just a minority in the party, albeit a surprisingly large one. Besides where were else was the fundamentalist vote going to go - the New Conservatives?
The silver lining of supporting the legislation was it also distracted people from his own religious fundamentalism, which he’d feared was his kryptonite. People underestimated him, they joked that he looked like Lex Luther but they clearly hadn’t seen him in his favourite pajamas and cape.
The new poll showed he’d eaten David’s lunch. Poor David it had taken him a year to lure away the right wing fringe of the party’s vote and just like that it all came flooding back. Those voters knew where they wanted to see a woman and it was certainly not speaking, perhaps other than to say what a good job her husband was doing on the BBQ while she made the salad.
Poor desperate Dave having to resort to going among the all sorts on the parliament forecourt to look for votes. Still what with his caucus Dave was used to dealing with some pretty strange characters he thought.
He did sometimes worry what would happen once they won. Maureen, Simeon, that ghastly Kuriger woman, so many of them were not ministerial material. He had this recurring dream that he was on a plane that was about to slam into the side of a mountain as the pilot, Simon Bridges, was congaing through the cabin. Ah well a problem for another day
He had to laugh, Jacinda had done all this hard work, people all over the world seemed to think she’d done rather well but all he had to do was nothing and he’d soon have her job. Got to love the NZ public eh.
The media had anointed him as the next PM from before day one. Obviously he had expected, and received, slavish sycophancy from NZME, but even TVNZ was drooling over him. Katie Bradford sounded like a Chris Bishop press release every evening, shrieking that it was a shambles, and twisting the knife into the Labour party she clearly hated.
He remembered Katie’s mother had been a leftie, she must be rolling in her grave he thought with a chuckle. He made a mental note not to chuckle like that in public until after the election, he sounded like Muldoon and it wasn’t time for people to fear him yet.
Who could stop him now? Judith with her plotting of revenge, not likely – she’d take someone out no doubt but it wouldn’t be him, more likely Simon. No, after the election he could rehabilitate her, she’d make a fine corrections minister.
Hmm he seemed to have quite a few options for corrections minister, not many for education though. Only that Stanford woman, and she couldn’t tell the difference between the Minister of Education and the Minister for the Covid Response. He had grinned at that Spiderman meme.
No, the only person who could stop him now was Nicola. She was driven not only by personal ambition but she was on a mission to change society – if he was Key 2.0 she was very much Ruth Richardson 2.0. He had asked her to stop saying “This is Sparta” at the oddest times, she said she was merely speaking of her ambition for the people of this country.
Chris would have to watch her closely, as would the rest of New Zealand he thought, but for the moment he basked in the warmth of the latest poll content that his flight-path was heading for a desirable touchdown.