I had a previous engagement so I had to record it and watch it later in the evening, which is a good thing, because I could spool through the ads and if the pain overwhelmed me, I could always pause, have a scotch and never come back. It was painful but I suffered through it because – well you have to follow what’s happening bad as it might be.
So let me start with the host. Is it just me or is John Campbell really a pathetically sycophantic host; drooling over both of them and the viewing audience as well: “thank you so very much for being with us tonight” – over and over and over again. It makes the hairs stand up on the neck. And for those of you that thought he’d be a lefty host favouring the Ardern – well he wasn’t and he didn’t but hell he’s bloody hard to watch and listen to. His wrap at the end sums him up:
“Jacinda Ardern and Judith Collins, thank you so much for being with us this evening…. It’s a bloody tough job being a politician, there’s a lot of scrutiny, a lot of pressure on the campaign trail, and yet the best politicians have the capacity to and the potential to …… lead ….. us …….. somewhere better … so I really wish you both well. One of you will be prime minister after the election and…….. may whoever it is be as successful as we all deserve. Thank you both for being with us tonight, we appreciate your time, we appreciate your passion, and we appreciate the energy. Good luck both of you. Thank you..…. That’s all from our two leaders I do really wish them well………….”
Oh please – bring me a bucket.
Campbell has the same uncanny ability as the Prime Minister to writhe around so much on screen that it makes you feel really uncomfortable. You’d swear either one of them is going to pop through and writhe all over you.
Something happened to me that I really struggled with. For some reason all I could see every time the prime minister was on screen was a picture that looked like someone channeling Michael Jackson. A bit of moonwalking and I’d have been completely sold. It was bizarre. I had to keep re-watching segments because I just couldn’t get the image to go away. Even the “Heal the World” hands together prayerful body language, the facial expressions, the head nodding. Of course the appalling diction was there to destroy the dream along with the, exaggerations, floundering one liners and constant smiling (though she did get caught on camera a couple of times turning the smile on and off at will. Looked awfully insincere).
Judith Collins made many good points and made them well. It wasn’t by any means a perfect performance but she scored some seriously effective hits. It was a fluid, strong performance drawing on personal experience and knowledge and done with just the right amount of assertiveness and confidence that made Ms Ardern look like the lightweight that she is.
The prime minister did exactly what one might have expected. She came in confident and happy to stand on her “successes” using the same slogans and excessive facial expressions. Bordered on believable a few times but overall, it was a lacklustre performance.
I’d call it very much a case of the dreamer with all the right sounding slogans and dreams of what ought to be alongside the pragmatist pointing out why those dreams couldn’t be and noting that talking about having a plan is quite different from actually having one and implementing it.
My score card then: Collins 8/10 (and stop saying “by the way” all the time).
Jacinda Ardern 4/10 and that’s a generous score on what was a very average performance.
TVNZ -3 for a boring set and dreadful camera angles.
John Campbell 2/10 and one of those was for turning up. I deducted points for fouls – all his writhing and contorting and trying to look the part but never quite making it. That was never going to go well.
The Colmar Brunton poll results by the way (to quote Judith), too early to be significant, but if you think by election day that Labour will end up with 48% and National 31% you can join me in the back yard to howl at the next full moon and have meaningful discussions with the tooth fairy.
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