KEY POINTS:
John Key is starting to remind me of the Mad Butcher, whom I interviewed in Auckland years ago at a disabilities conference about a particular affliction he had.
It's the one where you say Yes when you mean No, and Yesterday when you mean Tomorrow, and Right when you mean Wrong.
The way he described, it was like going to the right filing cabinet in your mind but pulling out the wrong file.
Maybe Key has got a touch of the same thing which could explain why he said in his first speech to a National Party conference as leader that he was proud to lead the Labour party.
It might explain why he told reporters today "I condone push-polling" when he meant to say "I don't condone push-polling."
It may also be the truth behind him having said last year he wanted wages to "lower" instead of saying, as he done many times before, that he wanted wages to increase.
Tripping up on push-polling is hardly a federal case. Key corrected himself almost as soon as he said it and said he was opposed to it.
But it reinforces a growing perception that he often says the wrong thing.
(In all the hype over Key's comments about the peaceful negotiation that led to the Treaty of Waitangi, few if anyone noticed that the gaffe he made in the same interview suggesting that without the settlements like CNI, Maori would have a legitimate claim to take to the Privy Council. Of course, he meant the Supreme Court.)
Key's blue about push-polling this morning was made outside his caucus where he was being questioned about National's use of the Australian political consultants Crosby Textor story, which he foolishly won't confirm.
One thing he could confirm: "I'm going to set the tone of National's campaign and that tone will be optimistic, positive and ambitious because it reflects my personality and it reflects the way the country should be run."
Such a perfectly formed phrase - perhaps from Crosby Textor - that he repeated it three times.
Key's excuse for failing to confirm that the firm is working for National on its fourth election campaign is that National never says which firms are working for the party.
He hinted that Crosby Textor had requested confidentiality.
The failure to confirm what everybody knows and what the party is willing to confirm with a nod and wink is quite ludicrous. It is lending a sinister tone to something which should be freely admitted. If Crosby Textor were worth the money they are being paid, they would have advised Key of that ages ago.
The issue is gold in the hands of Clark who has been laying it on thick: "It's clear that Crosby Textor is being used to control and manage the gaffe prone Mr Key just in the way they managed and controlled the gaffe prone Boris Johnson in the London mayoralty. Why don't they just fess up?" she asked on her way into caucus.
Tellingly this morning, she says she will happily say which firms Labour is using for research and media training and advertising but she avoided saying the party would reveal all its consultants.
She would not rule out push-polling either from Labour - something that Key categorically ruled out from National in the coming election campaign - but only "honest" push-polling.
If John Key was showing his lack of experience today, a former National leader, Jim Bolger, was showing his experience at the Wellington Railway Station helping Labour to get the new state-owned KiwRail launched under his stewardship as chairman of the board.
Asked if there was a certain irony in the fact that he will now head the company of the same railways that he sold when he was Prime Minister, he batted it away saying simply that life is full of ironies. A master's voice.
