"It's not that horrible pink one is it?", said Vicki as we both laughed in the dark at 4am and I got up to start the G News day explaining how Nicola Willis will wear her lucky pantsuit on Budget Day and I have to write an article.
Unlike Mr Small ( Nicola's hubby ) I did have the bandwidth to take care of Monty, and I set about opening a sachet of cat food - but what I wasn't prepared for was Luxon's voice suddenly ringing inside my head after I had put my hearing aids on.
Yes I nearly died when the Bluetooth picked up the video accidentally playing on my cell - but I decided to listen to what Luxon was saying again as I placed Monty's bowl down on the kitchen floor.
Luxon was saying he had a pretty big mandate to turn things around and he wanted people off medical waiting lists and out of emergency houses and off benefit jobseeker benefits - and said he would not listen to what people were saying.
People like nurses and doctors, experts, scientists, respected wise elders - the usual riff raff.
We all know that National governments fiddle with the eligibility criteria and scope of target measurements - plus they distort behaviours in order to reach a target and then claim success.
They do this so they can boast that the KPI has been achieved - tick that box.
By this I mean - they create things like new lists ( of lower priority ) and shovel people off the target list they are measuring - so it gets smaller - and I also mean - they turn people away or boot them out of an emergency ward - before it is safe - just to say - see the patient was dealt with in less than six hours. Tick that box.
They call it efficiency - a code for poor quality service, a firm hand, ruthless, callous treatment, a paucity of dignity and care.
Who can forget Jack Tame asking what happens to the people you evict from emergency housing and the horror on Chris Bishop's face - cos National supporters do not ask questions like that.
A sphincter says what?
Instead that focus on the KPI - and the "how it is achieved" does not matter in the same way "the turn around job" is an outcome. The means to the end is insignificant and that is where the deception thrives out of the sunlight.
It's that immorality that pisses me off I suppose because my mother drove the value of honesty into me when I was a boy, so it is hard for me to watch National supporters being duped and clapping like dumb seals for this sort of slime.
The notion that the greediest of men ( capitalists ) will adopt noble service as their guiding light - laughs like a whore in a dark street alley - and a glass of delusion shatters as a nation wakes the hell up to what it voted for.
It's honesty that compels me to add that yesterday somebody pointed out that Tova had explicitly stated she was taking her political gloves off with Willis in an attempt to get to know her - and how I disregarded that - as well as the fact that Nicola claimed to be one of the girls in the stairwell smoking a joint.
Suffice to say the result was still trivial magazine drivel - but Willis had placed a privileged toe over a line - admitting is a safe way to once indulging in a bit of grass smoking like a naughty rebellious school girl - which was a glimmer of honesty I hope we see in future given the way these politicians all fake it and pretend to be something they are not.
Politicians and their carefully curated stories about themselves generally make me sick - so a bit of honesty is refreshing - but yeah it was not much - just a small thing ( no Pun intended Mr Small with the lack of bandwidth ).
I'm not going down a tangential rabbit hole about harm and weed and National politicians who come home after midnight most nights - instead I am on track ( lol ) to talk about that lucky pantsuit.
The reason it was described as lucky - is Willis was referring to how things went well for her with the media when she last wore it - and she had built up an irrational belief about it - helping her sell the poison apple she was offering the public.
Let's not talk about tightness, fit and stretch or a hand on the puku - but instead the way the Neoliberal agenda is a very hard sell to the bottom feeders and the squeezed middle ( lol ) so the likes of an insecure Willis needs to clutch at superstition more than say - Grant Robertson eating a cheese roll or Steven ( Golden Dildo ) Joyce getting a haircut on Budget day.
Willis is a screech owl - triggered by the smallest whiff of challenge - going from calm to full volume in less than four seconds - and it's this inner emotional violence that splashes like stomach acid on her amygdala - meaning she's an erupting volcano of neoliberal harm trying to reel herself back in behind those CatBum pin point eyes.
To be frank, Willis has had a very easy ride with the fluffers in the media - but she's hyper sensitive and confuses loudness with control - shouting down the facts that confront her - in favour of her excuses why the account deficit is not number one right now and the return to surplus can just ease on down the road.
Her election bribe comes first at the expense of nearly 5,000 jobs - because in the end - it's self serving to give a tax cut at the wrong time - and polling after the Budget in June will be surrounded by pundits - talking about whether "the dawn" was really a "sunset" as there is no bounce.
No doubt Willis is feeling the pressure as soon all eyes will be upon her lucky pantsuit - while somewhere out of the limelight Chlöe is communicating with the people of the land - that we can make this a one term government.
The political power of the left bloc does not come from the shadows behind a curtain where the nine directors of the NZ Initiative shape the inequality we suffer in.
Instead as Chlöe says - the power comes from each and every one of us - the ordinary people - who do not ask for much but serve - a noble service - to our families and our communities and each other.
Chlöe does not need a "lucky pantsuit" or to clutch at some superstitious irrational belief - because she has the truth we know behind her. It comes from research and evidence and she will listen to the people, the scientists, the experts, the wise elders, the nurses and the doctors.
"We can make this a one term government", said Chlöe.
We can. Yes we can.
The turnaround job is not a 180 degree turn around as Christopher Luxon likes to assume - it's a 360 degree turnaround.
We are already back to a Labour/Green/TPM government because the turnaround job has only taken six months.
The mandate Luxon refers to is history - and now the mandate in the polls means - more headlines are due to Chris Hipkins ( the guy with vision, experience, knowledge and substance ) and to Chlöe whose power comes from the people and the evidence.
No more fiddling with lists to claim KPIs have been reached and a fake delivery has been achieved - that time is over.
People see the damage, the harm and it is very very bad.
It only took six months and now we start again while Nicola flicks through her wardrobe looking for something lucky to wear.
Not the horrible pink one?
The Lucky PantSuit - and the one term Government
Morena
G