The Key Problem

Written By: - Date published: 1:23 pm, March 16th, 2008 - 8 comments
Categories: john key - Tags:

The somewhat irregular and frequently misguided Chris Trotter occasionally hits it on-the-head. Today’s Sunday Star Times has Trotter running over John Key’s inability to take the heat when it comes to hard questioning. And he further notes that National will be concerned that their man will not stand up to the debates later in the year with Helen Clark.

Trotter is, in my view merely observing the obvious, but it’s a point worth making now. John Key is really a ‘show pony’ for the National Party and a mask to its pernicious agendas to take New Zealand back to the darker days of ‘divide and rule’.

Key comes from the world of international finance and money trading. It’s a poker-playing world of dogged self-interest, opportunism and hard questions lots of questions. Key’s approach would have been to ask enough questions of the market to ensure that there would always be enough ‘yeses’ to make lots of money for him and his masters. How does that work now that Key is hoping to put ‘Prime Minister of New Zealand’ on his CV? Simply this; Key is good at being the opportunist, but he’s really only comfortable if he’s asking the questions from a prepared script. He simply doesn’t have the background or capacity to deal with hard questions coming back at him. Money traders don’t have to answer questions, they simply make money.

Frankly the Labour government and the media have not asked enough of Key, so now is the time to do it. He’s presented a glossy version of his CV so if we, as potential employers of a Prime Minister, want him for the job, we’d better be certain he can handle it. Why is he glibly bagging the Fast Forward innovation initiative; why did he ‘accidentally’ say he’d hope wages will fall; why did he really want us to go into Iraq, etc, etc, etc? Is he being slippery or does he have serial accidents involving his teeth and tongue?

I think that the electorate deserves some answers to these questions after all we need to employ a government and leader before the year is over.

Here’s an idea from this Standard contributor Helen Clark and John Key publicly debate the major issues early in 2008. Why wait until later? The government will likely say that it should keep its powder dry for later, but that will simply suit Key down to the ground. Labour’s powder is already soaking in sweet smelling honey from the Key charm machine and of course he is avoiding facing the stiffer questions for as long as possible.

But hey, the debate idea is an idle challenge. Labour won’t want it yet and John Key would refuse to accept the offer anyway, so everyone is playing safe! In the meantime, The Standard will keep asking questions.

8 comments on “The Key Problem ”

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  1. infused 1
    16 March 2008 at 3:15 pm

    HIDDEN AGENDA!!!!111one

  2. the sprout 2
    16 March 2008 at 6:25 pm

    anyone that’s watched Key closely over the last year shouldn’t be surprised at impressions of his ineptitude.

    what is interesting though is that an msm publication is now running such a line (albeit carefully innoculated by having Trotter as author). wasn’t that long ago it’d be unheard of. a couple more blunders and it’ll become commonplace, and not just by so-called leftist writers.

    now is the time for a few more invitations to Key to open his mouth.

  3. out of bed 3
    16 March 2008 at 6:33 pm

    So now the National strategy is not only “release as little policy as possible, but when confronted with um er eh ah I er.. of Key, the answer is get “English” as a second language

  4. Dancer 4
    16 March 2008 at 8:07 pm

    i like the idea of a debate – but there would need to be some thought given to the audience. I remember last election they were noisy and painful (and added little). A quiet studio – with Kim Hill. Now wouldn’t that be interesting?

  5. Phil 5
    17 March 2008 at 9:31 am

    How about the old “crossfire” method?

  6. Draco TB 6
    17 March 2008 at 10:03 am

    Money traders don’t have to answer questions, they simply make money.

    Probably more accurate to say that they leech money.

  7. insider 7
    17 March 2008 at 12:10 pm

    They no more leech money than electricity traders, traders in spices, oil traders, and cargo traders.

    How did owen glenn get rich? Trading space on containers. Is he more, less or the same of a leech?

  8. mondograss 8
    17 March 2008 at 12:16 pm

    The problem with an early debate is that it’s giving Key practice for the campaign, and results would get skewed by the talking heads doing the post-analysis anyway. I don’t think there’s anything in it for Labour this far out.