KEY POINTS:
As election nights go, I have to say last Saturday was a bit of a fizzer. I'm sure I'm not the only person in the country to think that, but the reason for my disappointment wasn't particularly ideological.
Unlike the rest of The Broken Left I don't
believe the Other Crowd getting in presages the dawn of endtimes, necessarily.
It's hard to imagine we're headed down the road to ruin under a National Government that did such a good job of hogging the middle of the road for the last few months.
Nothing I've read or heard about Roger Douglas makes me especially enthused to have Act in power, though, and I'm sick of Rodney's gristly grin already.
That said, I wasn't there when the blood hit the walls in the 1980s and there's a cold-blooded part of me that wouldn't mind a ringside seat if there's another carve-up on the agenda.
Say what you like about wholesale social and economic vandalism, at least it's a change from the interminable reasonableness that has beset our politicians of late.
I'm still mildly queasy from the love-in final leaders' debate before we went to the polls. Listening to Helen and John finish each other's sentences and hoot away merrily at each other's lame jokes was bad enough. I turned it off when she more or less offered him a job. The overall impression was of two fundamentally decent, if not particularly inspiring, leaders in waiting. Win-win for New Zealand electorates, lose-lose for watchable TV.
Given the cordial timbre of relations between our prospective leaders, the relentless chumminess of it all, perhaps it's not surprising that fireworks were largely absent last Saturday night.
Which isn't to say there weren't highlights. Foxy Tory broads being back for one thing. I was up at TVNZ for the evening, being a media commentator-slash-flibbertigibbet. All the better to bask in the glory of National Party crumpet like Michelle Boag and Jenny Shipley. These ladies may have been around the block a few times, but there's no doubt they've still got it.
As a long time fan of Margaret Thatcher chic, I'm delighted to look forward to the resurgence of Iron Lady glamour. And I had two of its finest proponents all to myself in the green room. Michelle was a vision in blue (what else?), her queenly coif bent in concentration as she poured over incoming results from Waiheke booths on her blackberry.
This data was then processed into a chart showing the exact breakdown of votes from Ostend to Onetangi. It was colour coded and everything. She brought three different coloured pens.
As for the Ship, it was my first time in her presence and I was suitably awed by the experience. She oozed regality, in her sparkly tuxedo and aubergine-tinted crop. It was almost like sitting opposite Liza Minnelli if you squinted your eyes.
Michelle and Jenny. Grandes Dames the pair of them, in the timeless tradition of Elizabeth Taylor, or Danny La Rue. Poor old Judith Tizard couldn't hold a candle to that sort of high-octane glamour, she looked like even more of a couch than usual, and the glamazons simply dwarfed young Nikki Kaye when she arrived, flushed and rosy from her thumping win in Auckland Central. Great white hope she may be, but the lady needs to get herself a pussycat bow and a blow-wave asap. She looked like a gauche little postulant, nestled up against the marvellous Michelle.
Apart from style spotting, though, there wasn't really a lot to do really, besides eat mini quiches and laugh at Willie Jackson and JT, fielding calls like Del Boy in te reo. The Ship's husband got into the quiches and sounded gloomy about Obama while Winston brought the media curs to heel and delivered his swansong.
We said goodbye to Jim Anderton from the comfort of his kitchen, and Peter Dunne looked even more like a danish pastry than ever, in a hallway somewhere, by himself.
And then it was all over. Helen Clark bade us farewell, flanked by a bevy of dancing nieces that were the best look Labour never had. Where have they been hiding all our lives?
Cut to footage of the incoming Prime Minister, incoming. John Key, dazed and stumbling over his own good fortune, face splitting in a pumpkin grin. A victory speech that would have done credit to any drunk accountant in the country, which is exactly what he looked like giving it.
Back to panel, a final, endless exposition from Nigel Roberts. And finally, game over. All done and dusted for another three years. And home to feel curiously deflated, and just well ... blah.
Elections are like New Year's Eve, a friend told me. All that build-up means a let-down when the moment finally arrives. Ah well, at least Bronagh Key got a kiss when the clock struck 12.
