Winston a card all night

For the sake of good television, couch potatoes will be praying like a pack of Brethren that Winston Peters and Rodney Hide manage to make it back into Parliament.

For Peters and Hide the fun began before the debate even started. Host Mark Sainsbury engaged them in some chit-chat about their day.

Peters: "I've been in Auckland, trying to avoid Rodney Hide".

Hide: "That wouldn't have been hard. I was up at 6".

Peters: "That's because you couldn't sleep".

Hide: "I actually saw Winston coming home when I got up".

Once the debate proper started, the audience was unable to drag it out of the realms of tedium, in spite of a growling from Sainsbury.

In an ad break, the host said some cell phones were causing sound problems. "It's Don Brash taking orders from above," a Labourite quipped.

So again, it was Winston Peters to the rescue to keep the troops entertained. Reaching into his magic pocket, he produced a Labour election pledge card. It proved to be his powertool of the night.

He looks at it, smirks, scribbles something, puts it down and, unusually, waits patiently, then waves it about, declares it to be the 1999 pledge card and points out they haven't met their pledge on waiting lists.

"Yeeeaaahhh," yell the rightish party supporters.

The card's work is not done. Come questioning about the campaign and Dr Brash's brush with the Exclusive Brethren, Peters starts to wave his hands: "Mark, Mark, Mark!"

He gives up, and instead decides on question time for the audience.

"Who paid for this?" he asks, waving the card. "Who paid for this?"

"The TAXPAYER," the audience obediently chants.

His point made, he leaves the other politicians to cackle over that together, gives that card one last admiring glance, and stows it safely back in his pocket.