An hour (two,three...) to spare whilst waiting for the next available tractor with which to plough a furrow and I wandered over to Whaleoil for a moment to try and relieve the tedium of an unseasonably wet and cold afternoon. Mr W is a right wing Blogger whose dislike of Helen borders on unbridled hatred and generally has views that would make Atilla the Hun look like Lenin. A good alternative to kicking the cat is Mr Whaleoil.
In amongst the usual diatribes was an invitation to watch about ten minutes of Parliamentary Question Time on YouTube. Why not? I've nothing else to do. It was posted as it shows John Key scoring points off Helen - well it has my attention already. I've never watched Parliamentary TV before and frankly I was horrified. I am not sure what I was expecting but I certainly wasn't prepared for the banality and downright lying that awaited.
It is awful on a biblical scale. They could persuade you that the sun rises in the West if you weren't paying attention. The whole thing is couched like a game of charades. You don't get up and say 'The Prime Minister is a lying toad' (which she patently is). You ask the Speaker whether the Prime Minister could tell the House when she first knew there was enough of a budgetry surplus to announce tax cuts. The answer to this question could to my mind be one of three things. 1) A time - half past six, 2) a date - Thursday 4th October 2007 or 3) the truth - I haven't the first idea.
The Rt. Hon (vomit) Helen Clarke (Prime Minister) responds along these lines 'I am astonished that the Leader of the Opposition has such a poor grasp of the basics of economics (we pause here to ponder that he is a millionaire retired money trader in his forties and she someone who has never had a real job) that he does not realise that a Labour led Government has brought in Working for Familes - a measure which he voted against' Eh? It's like asking 'How do you get to Penrose?' and getting '$4.50 a kilo' as reply. Not to be flummoxed JK tries again. 'Madam Speaker my I ask the Prime Minister when she first knew there was enough cash for tax cuts' Speaker then says ' I listened to her reply and I thought she already answered that.' It is staggering. I began to wonder what SWMBO had slipped into my lunch. Were the mushrooms of the Magic variety and not the Field version I thought them to be?
I gave up after about three minutes. This is no more a sensible debate surrounding the running the country than a commentary of the 3.30 at Riccarton is a precis of Sweden's foreign policy.
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