John Boy, and John Boy junior.

I'm afraid the Herald's John Armstrong is getting worse, not better. His year-long application for the job of John Key's catamite continues in glowing prose in this morning's Herald (thankfully kept from the front page only by the dramas in Fiji -- perhaps the best thing there is to be said about the all-too-confusing events there).

Here's how I ever-so-briefly summed up yesterday's question period in Parliament, John Boy Key's first as opposition leader, after listening in to find some hint of spine in the new National leader: "...the chamber was buried in fog, and the drip (ie., Key] was buried by the Prime Minister." Now here's Armstrong, with his tongue firmly placed where Trevor Mallard thinks about inserting Heineken bottles.

It may not yet be a battle of equals. But one thing is clear from yesterday's first head-to-head clash in Parliament between John Key and Helen Clark. There is now going to be a real battle.

Clearly we heard a different question period. The one I heard was a blancmange of powderpuff questions, with Key huffing and puffing over his recent conversion to the religion of global warming, and the Government benches hooting with derision at what they must surely see as an easy run ahead. "They're like the third form," hooted Clark, which pretty much sums up how John Boy sounded.

Armstrong's praise for Key, however, knows no bounds: "You could almost see National MPs' hearts swelling with pride." (Those are Armstrong's own words. My own stomach swelled with nausea when I read them, I can tell you.) John Boy "cut loose," says John Boy junior, and with "ferocity" -- ferocity! -- "eyeballing Helen Clark directly as he spoke." Just imagine! Eyeballing Helen Clark, the crazy fool!! "Mr Key had cleverly [emphasis mine] chosen to quiz the Prime Minister on her stated aim of making New Zealand "carbon neutral..." Sickening, isn't it. The cleverness apparently comes because the line of questioning was one in which Key signalled he is out to out-Clark Clark -- that is, "out to 'own' climate change."

"Key holds his own," says Armstrong. Well, he got that much right. What a drip. Anyway, you don't have to take my word for John Boy's wet performance, or the word of John Boy junior. You can listen in yourself. Key's own appearance doesn't take long. Mercifully.

UPDATE: Liberty Scott has two reports on the blancmange opposition. First, Maurice Wimpianson demonstrating why "Telecom has stopped funding political parties, almost all of them are full of thieves." And then the policy free zone that is National's conversion to the politics of "climate change," for which Scott helpfully suggests the best policies would be 1) abolishing the RMA, 2) privatising the roads, and 3) deregulating and privatising the power generators. (Well, you don't visit here for mainstream thinking, now do you?)

LINKS: Key hold his own in honourable draw - John Armstrong, NZ Herald
Question Time for Tuesday 5th December - Radio NZ
Nats give Telecom zero - Liberty Scott
National's new policy free zone - Liberty Scott

RELATED: Politics-NZ, Politics-National