Views on Labour’s song

Denis Welch blogs his reaction to Labour’s song:

I do wish they wouldn’t sing at Labour Party conferences. Not in public, anyway. One glimpse on the television news of Ruth Dyson, Maryan Street and friends singing an anti-John-Key parody of “The Gambler” onstage at the latest conference was enough to have me hiding my head under the sofa cushions. Not only was it embarrassingly in-house, it exposed Labour as caring just a bit too much about Key. Boy, they must be scared of him. If they are so scared, they should find subtler ways of demonizing him.

Fran O’Sullivan gets musical in response:

“On a chilly autumn morning in a Government going nowhere, Helen met Michael the Gambler; caustic and grim.

“When Helen saw that people were suffering, stung by rising food prices and not able to pay their bills,

“The PM said, Michael, you’ll finally have to empty all your tills.

“Michael said, Helen, I’ve made a life out of gambling other people’s money, not caring where it came from, or who would lose their job.

“But this year I’ll let them keep back some of their taxes. I promise not to be churlish – I know there’s an election coming and I’ll be ready every day, to flip when you say flop.”

Chorus (sung by Fisher & Paykel choir):

“You’ve got to know not to trust them, not to believe them, know what they tell you, won’t be the truth,

“We can’t let them run the country, cos they’re just not able … “.

And if you think that is bad, you really don’t want to hear what was played on Classic Hits FM. Anyway Fran pulls no punches:

This bastardised Rogers’ ditty is not particularly nice.

But what else does the Government expect after the pathetic sight of three caterwauling female Cabinet ministers tunelessly hammering out their own bastard version of the Rogers hit to slag off John Key at the Labour Party congress?

The three ministers: Ruth Dyson (labour), Maryan Street (housing) and Steve Chadwick (conservation and women’s affairs) will be in the front-line as New Zealand families continue to be hit by the rising cost of living and the loss of more jobs overseas, while the persistently high New Zealand dollar robs most exporters of their profitability.

But instead of using their party congress to tackle major systemic issues like food security and New Zealand’s monetary policy regime, they burst into trivia.

A party’s election year congress is not a minor event. It is probably the third most important event for a party after the campaign opening and closing.  It is an opportunity to get you campaign messages away. Instead all people will now recall is the song and the fire alarm.