Where’s the beef John?

• all_your_base
• 16 years ago
• Categories: budget 2008, john key, slippery
• Tags: where's the beef

Key kicks off this Close Up interview by trying to dampen down rising expectations of National’s tax package and make himself some wiggle room by emphasising that his comments from earlier in the week about tax cuts “north of $50” relate to voter expectations rather than what National may eventually be able to deliver.

Presumably this clarification is an instruction from English, a man who’ll be increasingly worried about his ability to pay for John’s continually growing list of election year promises.

Again,  Key is lightweight on the detail, preferring slogans and buzzwords to facts and figures. Sainsbury seems to lose patience with Key’s slipperness and the ‘guest budget family’, the Thorburns, didn’t seem convinced by Key’s style over substance approach either:

Sainsbury: Vote to Naitonal after that?

Thorburns: “Ahhhh, I can’t say I’m dead set on running off and giving my vote to National after that [performance by John Key]”…

Sainsbury: So you want to see detail from John Key and National?

Thorburns: Yes definitely…

People are starting to ask “where’s the beef John?”

It’s a famous advertising line from the American burger chain Wendy’s. The slogan was aimed at a competitor who offered consumers a big burger bun, but without much beef. From memory it’s a line Key has used before in the house, it seems that it might just come back to haunt him…