Mike's Minute: If you're an MP, avoid the dumb brigade

Under normal circumstances, if I was a Prime Minister, I'd avoid the dumb brigade. 

In general terms they preside in music radio and/or on podcast platforms. 

It is the arena of numbnut behaviour, it's always a trap. 

Anthony Albanese found this out a few weeks ago when he was offered an option of who to shag or marry and ended up bumbling through an answer that suggested he would shag Kylie Minogue and that the Rabbitohs were an aphrodisiac. 

He almost immediately apologised, as he should have. 

Paul Henry suggesting he would shoot Chris Hipkins is our new version as of yesterday. 

This came off the back of the Stuart Nash mess (for the record, a completely different set of circumstances) and what appears to be a newfound desire to be “outraged”. 

Labour is “outraged”. 

My fear this election campaign is there is more where this came from. 

Nash is an idiot with form and his comments weren't funny, or even in the entertainment realm. 

Henry, who also has form but in the “this could be funny, or could be a bridge too far” category, gets away with it this time because of the setting i.e. a music radio station looking for giggles, and also because Labour need to be careful with their “outrage” habit. 

Henry also gets away with it because he currently is merely a citizen. It will be different, potentially, if he is an MP and even more different if he is a Cabinet minister. 

Albanese didn’t get away with it because he isn't funny at the best of times, just looked like a dirty old man and, more importantly, because he is a Prime Minister and Prime Ministers need to be beyond reproach. 

Citizens can do what they like but MPs need to be one rung up from that. Cabinet ministers need to be pretty squeaky clean and Prime Ministers need to be saint-like, artificially so, hence we don’t attract normal people to represent us anymore. 

Labour need a sense of humour and the ability to manufacture their outrage at opportune times, not anytime. 

It is still only July and I'm over this election and it hasn’t even started. 

Henry will be back for more of this, I wouldn't rule Michael Laws out of saying something random, Shane Jones is building a head of steam, and my bet is that before November 7th someone we haven't even thought of will end up doing something weird, creepy, or mental. 

All I can say is, be patient. It's only just begun. 

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