Kate had been having a rough week what with Pool delays, nightmares about Red Light settings, concerns for the success of Christopher Luxon’s first OE as leader of the opposition, and now she had to attack the government for introducing a Grocery Commissioner to try and create fairness in the supermarket sector.
She did understand it was an important part of her role to make the government look bad, Mike said it was the whole role, but people wanted cheaper food didn’t they?
She thought she would attack it from the point of view of bureaucracy. Her listeners knew that analysing a problem and coming up with a plan were a sign of weakness – real Kiwis just jumped in and did it, they didn’t need planning meetings, or discussions, or experts with industry knowledge.
Kate announced that intervention in the sector would have delays and wouldn’t come in until 2023, the year it was planned for, because there would be a lot of paperwork – something other governments clearly hadn’t done.
She backed it up by quoting the deputy leader of ACT, which was brave because she found her quite frightening in a drink-the-blood-of-your children way, it was worse than when she had to meet Peter Thiel.
Brooke said “‘the reason Kiwis pay too much for food was ”rampant domestic inflation fuelled by Government spending"”
Kate thought that sounded good although she couldn’t really working out how hiring more nurses made the price of cauliflower so high. Still, as Mike always put is so kindly thinking wasn’t really her bag – they both had important roles.
Sometimes she wondered if the people really appreciated all that the first couple of New Zealand did for them. No, not Jacinda and Clarke she meant herself and Mike, the preeminent think tank of Aotearoa’s* finest radio station.
*While it is the job of the Newstalk ZB presenter to whip the audience into an angry frenzy Kate always remembered that use of the “A” word should be considered the nuclear option for her listeners and so she made a point of never using it, even when she wasn’t on the radio.
If there was one thing that Kate didn’t like it was having to use Mikey’s leftovers. The scripts obviously come from the same place but Kate’s “ideas” were the ones Mike rejected as being too absurd or just filler to support his own arguments.
Kate had tried writing her own work but no one had wanted to hear about her character Katie who liked to ride ponies and have picnics with all the tooth fairies down at the bottom of the garden.
Sometimes she had to remind Mike that as the heiress to the Hawkesby millions she was successful in her own right. Not only that but due to her exacting dental regime the nation had taken to calling her “Flossie” as a term of affection.
You should see what they call you online she said to Mike which did make his ears prick up until he realised she was still talking about herself.
Earlier in the week Kate had told the nation that it was expensive and a pain in the ass dealing with the council over the building of her pool and for the vast sum involved you seemingly got very little from the council other than a form processed.
The people she really felt sympathy for were the potential staff - even Mike was smart enough to know it would be pretty dodgy for her to hire a pool boy for maintenance when they didn’t actually have a pool.
Some people had been through the council process and said for once Kate was 100% correct, but most people mocked her pool delays as if they weren’t really important. Some of them almost seemed to take joy in her predicament.
Still acting in a way that would embarrass most people was no impediment to Kate – hello, did you see the guy she married?
The very next day she presented an article bemoaning the awful cost of moving back to a Red Light setting.
The fact that the government seemingly had no intention of doing so was not of concern to Kate, or of course to her readers who took it as read that the reds from under the bed would move them back to a red light setting creating pools of red ink as the Prime Minister gleefully destroyed what little was left of the economy.
One of her stable mates at NZME Liam Dann had tweeted about there being a return to red in a couple of weeks.
People lost their minds with outrage until a few people realized he was talking about the school holidays and it was a joke. Kate didn’t think jokes were a laughing matter.
Mostly though she worried about Christopher, she and Mike were working very hard to present him as the next Prime Minister of New Zealand but it wasn’t always easy as he didn’t give them a lot to work with.
The good news was that Chris had identified that the government had hired too few people to cover worker shortages due to winter illnesses. The bad news was the previous week he had told the country they had hired too many workers. You never quite knew with Christopher - too many, too few, who knows – did he?
It was bad timing that poor old Christopher had arrived in London just as the government there imploded, she didn’t think anyone would connect the two events although she knew damn well that if it had been Jacinda there she would have laid the blame squarely on her for bringing down another PM.
No, poor Billy no-mates turning up in London and no Tory wanted to see him, apparently they were all too busy. Kate was reassured to hear that Boris Johnson said he was having a terrific week over night although she did wonder what a bad week must look like.
Mike made her feel better saying if all the other ministers quit Boris would just have to do all the roles himself, like Chris and Nicola were having to do.
She smiled and asked if there would still be a Photo Op for Chris with Boris while he was in London. Mike gave her that look that made her feel - he can’t believe he is lucky enough to be with you all of the time.
She was glad Chris was in London while there was this kerfuffle about him saying the winning team from Otara was from Botany and complaining he wouldn’t of mentioned them if they had lost.
She thinks that was a bit unfair, it had been brave of Chris to acknowledge Otara’s proximity to Botany. Normally residents of the latter would run a mile rather than be associated with their neighbours in Otara so really this was about Chris bringing people together.
Kate worried about Chris’ return - some of the indicators were going badly while he was away, unemployment was at record lows even interest rates were starting to come down.
She could see that she and Mike were going to have a big job ahead of them when he got back.
Perhaps she’d have just one more little picnic down the garden to relax before then.
genius, love it
Have you read Chris speech at some Tories get on ? Putting down our businesses saying "they were soft" getting too much from government?