Of sticks and stones

They could send van de Molen to loom over Hipkins like Donald Trump did in that stomach-churning 2016 presidential debate with Hillary Clinton.

- Michele Hewitson

Consider the past two years. We've had Covid and floods and $7 cabbages. Haven't we had enough fear? Now we have "attack politics", courtesy of the Council of Trade Unions. There, looming on billboards and videos and a front page wrap-around on the New Zealand Herald - plus a full-page ad inside - was the mug of National leader Christopher Luxon. He was supposed to look vaguely evil, like a cross between Hannibal Lecter and Uncle Fester from the Addams family.

"Out of touch. Too much risk." Ouch. Not really. The CTU needs to get snappier slogan writers.

Nasty and pathetic, said the National Party's campaign manager, Chris Bishop. The Nats are being thin-skinned, said Prime Minister Chris Hipkins. And no, of course he had no foreknowledge of the ads. Bishop was asked how Uncle Fester, oops, Luxon was "holding up" against such a personal attack. "Look, he's big enough and ugly enough to handle it," he said. As endorsements go, that wasn't much better than the CTU's.

Tough times require tough guys, man. Hipkins' "thin-skinned" is meant to imply that Luxon is not a tough guy and that Hipkins is a thick-skinned tough guy who could withstand being called names.

National will not stoop to such nasty measures. "I think I'm modelling out a very positive campaign," said Luxon. Which gives rise to an image of the Leader of the Opposition sitting in his shed making model planes out of balsa wood and chucking them at Hipkins.

Bishop assured the country, "We are not going to be making personal jibes and attacks on Chris Hipkins and other senior members of the Labour Party in our attack ads." Okay. So the Nats will be unleashing attack ads, which, apparently, are perfectly fine as long as they don't portray Hipkins as a menace. He does look rather like Dennis the Menace. An attack-ad consultant would charge big bucks for that genius suggestion.