Rosemary McLeod: Media meltdown leaves mess

Pam Corkery deftly managed to turn the tide on to herself, last weekend, and make Crusher Collins, the previous bad girl of politics, look positively dainty.

And the call of the crow echoed throughout the land.

There's no mistaking it: I used to live in Sydney, and they were at it all day long in my neighbourhood, avian fingernails on God's big blue blackboard.

I mean by that Pam Corkery throwing a wobbly. She deftly managed to turn the tide on to herself, last weekend, and make Crusher Collins, the previous bad girl of politics, look positively dainty.

It'd be fun to lock Crusher and Corkery in a bathroom for 24 hours and see who came out alive. I'm picking there'd be nothing left but clumps of hair and a fingernail - but no, we mustn't. Kim Dotcom needs two women to carry his handbag and pick up his droppings, and he'd be left with just poor little Laila Harre, who does her best to look really solemn.

By droppings, incidentally, I mean the pearls that drop from Dotcom's lips when he addresses his adoring fans, as he did in the weekend, and the big pearl he says he'll drop five days before the election, with the possible help of the biggest pearl dropper of them all, the honorary Ecuadorian Julian Assange. Was there an Internet Mana Party policy announcement? No matter, Dotcom revealed that he'd hacked into the German chancellor's credit rating when he was 19 because he "didn't like the guy".

That's how he now feels about John Key, and isn't any tactic justified when you don't like someone?

Corkery was a wild card choice as Laila Harre's press officer. Her last significant foray was a scheme to be the madam of a women's brothel, supplying men to love you long time. It didn't work out. She always has a following on commercial radio, though, where her distinctive vocal delivery is a plus.

Last Sunday she seemed ratty and emotional. I waited for her to hurl at the TV reporter who annoyed her that culminating insult, "middle class", and was surprised she held back. In some sections of society, among the Real People, that's the nastiest thing you can call anyone, implying that you haven't done the hard yards in life, possibly own your own home, and know which fork to use when dining with royalty. It's well known that only people who've grown up in deprivation and pick their teeth with a fork qualify as salt of the earth, more real than everyone else.

I've been called middle class often, incidentally, which I take as a compliment. I worked hard to reach that pinnacle of status; I wasn't born into it; and I see no harm in having an easier life than my parents did.

Media minding isn't a wise career choice for anyone prone to flying off the handle, since however much they may loathe journalists behind their backs, a minder's job is to smile and be charming.

Dotcom deserved to be questioned about his hacking claim, but consequences are something he prefers to avoid. I guess Corkery got that right.

Internet Mana needed a suave media minder badly that day, with Hone Harawira missing from the party line-up, having rolled his car, and furthermore found that someone had fired three pellets at his electoral office with an air rifle. This is when you call on the magic word spin, but no spin was to be had.

I'd be more amused by Internet Mana if they weren't out to divide the Maori vote in this election, the potential result being obliteration of the Maori Party, fewer votes for Labour and the Greens, and less of a say in government for Maori. If his fans play along with the big German, they may have little to smile about in the end.

That's why it's long been the rule that politicians can't offer lolly scrambles and free liquor on voting day. I guess free gold-plated iPads all round would fit into that category as well.

• Rosemary McLeod is a journalist and author