A key moment

John Key was in relaxed mood after this Sunday's episode of Campaign 08. He took off his tie and enjoyed a couple of beers with the show's panel journalists, even though he has a strictly enforced 11pm curfew.

He was a different man, in this media-centric situation, to the man I met briefly over a year ago. He has either been well trained or learnt to relax. There were even a few jokes that people laughed at. Although, I wonder how much of this was to do with journalists wanting to be on the right side of a man who may be the next Prime Minister.

As he drank his bottle of Corona someone asked why he wasn't drinking a New Zealand beer. Fortunately for John there was only Steinlager in the fridge. Even politicians shouldn't have to drink Steinlager.

On the wide-screen, and we are at Sky TV so it's a mammoth widescreen, Barack Obama's waving and grinning face hogs the corner of our eyes. Key notices the placards that Obama supporters wave no longer read "a change you can believe in" but "the change we need". He points his PR guy, Kevin, towards this and says "maybe we should change ours"...

It's hard to tell whether his tongue is in his cheek.

Key left in good time for his 11pm bed-time.

John Key spins out of control with Barack Obama comment

Excessive spinning leads to dizziness, and John Key certainly placed himself at a dizzy height this week when comparing himself to Barack Obama.

Was his comment published in a Financial Times profile the work of the National Party’s spin machine Crosby-Textor, or a slip of the tongue by an inexperienced politician?

The Labour Party nearly choked on their tongues in mirth, but it was a mirth misplaced. John Key wasn’t directly comparing himself to Obama.

He was clumsily trying to explain away the Financial Times suggestion that he would be the most inexperienced politician to lead New Zealand in more than 100 years.

Any party leader would like a slice of Obama pie at the moment; the US democratic candidate is riding high on the back of his policy of change and commands a stadium-sized audience of devotees.

He is the new rock star of politics. John Key is just new.

The question we have to ask about this fiasco is whether John Key is a puppet of his public relations company, or just green. To be fair to Key, he is right in saying Wellington hasn’t jaded him yet.

Like Obama, his career has been largely outside politics and like Obama he is offering change to the people of New Zealand. But what sort of change?

Crosby-Textor has done an excellent job with brand Key, but at some point we need to see some concrete policies.

Labour has tried various attacks on Key. First he was slippery, a politician who would go back on his word given the slightest opportunity.

But then it emerged that Key was far too wooden to be slippery. Now Key has a secret agenda.

According to the media he is going to turn into an evil dictator as soon as he gets into power and sit laughing at us from his pedestal in the Beehive.

“Mwah, hah, hah, there goes your precious KiwiBank!” he’ll mock.

Either that or senior National politicians love to talk more than gossiping grandmas in a tea room.

Spin is no laughing matter though. It has real effects on a nation’s politics and is very expensive to do properly. Companies like Crosby-Textor do not come cheap.

The advent of spin has seen a system of politics, in the Western world at least, that relies too heavily on image.

Policies are the last thing on a politician’s mind these days; a killer sound-bite and a witty one-liner to put down your opponent are more important.

Spin has turned parts of the media from an independent communicator to a ventriloquist’s dummy.

A political campaign dies its death or thrives on the pages of the newspapers and the screens of televisions.

Much better to see elections fought on the streets with well informed citizens able to hold their leaders to account on tangible matters rather than the ephemeral whirr of the spin machine.

Illustration: Sally Connor