There is no joke writer

The Nelson Mail reports:

And so the question remains: Who writes this stuff?

Who is the unnamed man or woman that sits in Prime Minister John Key’s corner silently passing him zingers written on paper napkins under the table? This staffer (one imagines you could only pay someone to do this job) has collated an incredible trove of whimsy in Key’s seven years in power.

There has been that one about being eaten by members of Ngati Porou. The one about killer paedophile not being invited around to the Chilean president’s place for lunch.

Knowing the PM’s media and comms staffers, I can say with certainty that none of them write his jokes, or certainly not ones about being eaten by Tuhoe. In fact they probably are the onces wincing the hardest when he tells such a joke.

There was also the one, or was it the two, about having a gathering in Australia and not knowing which Prime Minister would show up.

Key told that one twice on Thursday.

These jokes have always been bad. But they are bad in the same way dad jokes are bad, or jokes told to audiences of business people are bad.

The former may cause a slight, uncomfortable cringe and no harm done. The latter will attempt to be edgy and often lame but will always be met with raucous laughter.

For some reason audiences full of business people are prone to raucous laughter no matter the subject matter. This is as it was in Nelson.

The prime minister has thrived on both these forms of humour. As he has evolved into a more comfortable political animal, his demeanour while telling these jokes has become more relaxed, more confident. They have become something of a signature of Key’s. If Key is not joking then you know something is wrong. Most of the time he is joking.

So the unnamed staffer should be given a pay rise out of the prime minister’s own pocket because bad jokes seem to have as much to do with brand Key as anything else.

Of course, that is unless Key writes this stuff himself.

Yep, he does.