Minor leaders farce

I have to confess I didn't manage to watch the whole of the "minor party leaders debate" last night.  I was bored rigid.

There were too many of them for a start to actually have a debate, so in the absence of a serious interviewer we got instead just lame pantomime, with Sainsbury playing Widow Twankey. 

More sense might have been had if Neanderton and Dunne-Nothing had been dropped: since their parties, such as they are, attract less support than Libertarianz, they were there not so much to say what their parties could or would do, but only to indicate what they would like to do if they got their own feet under the cabinet table again -- once we'd heard them confirm which Team they were backing (Red for Neanderton, Blue for Dunne-Bugger-All), they should have been ushered from the stage.

And there was nothing new from from the others -- nothing coherent from Peters, and nothing that made sense from Fitzsimplesimons (anyone who thinks building bicycle paths and railway tunnels is the key to economic recovery should be introduced to the carers at Auckland's Mason Clinic) -- and what they did say indicated all too clearly they have no clue at all about either the urgency of the present crisis, or its depth, or what the hell a government needs to do to confront it.

It was a pantomime that makes clear enough why MMP has delivered only farce.