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Greg Dixon’s Another Kind of Politics is a weekly, mostly satirical column on politics that appears on listener.co.nz.
The Almighty is considering deporting JD Vance to Hell following the US Vice President’s deathbed visit to the late Pope Francis. A spokesperson for God said yesterday He was “appalled” that Vance had blagged his way into the Vatican for an audience shortly before the severely ill pontiff was due to give his final Easter homily. The spokesperson said Pope Francis had confided to St Peter at the Pearly Gates that meeting Vance was a “complete bummer”. The pontiff, who had been ill for weeks, died of a stroke just hours after the audience.
In a break with leader-to-leader protocol in the Donald Trump White House, Vance did not bully the Pope, berate him for being “ungrateful”, place a 150% tariff on him or call him a “loser” during their short meeting. Instead, Vance, wearing a yellow tie to match his Republican Party’s yellow streak, spent the short audience grovelling, leading to speculation Vance had somehow mistaken Francis for Trump.
“The Pope told St Peter that having to sit there and listen to Vance sucking up like a pathetic fanboy was nauseating, even if it was only for a few minutes,” God’s spokesperson said. “It was the last straw.”
Vance, a recent convert to Catholicism as well as para-fascism, had publicly disagreed with the Pope in recent months on immigration policies and other aspects of church teaching. The Pope’s final homily decried “how much contempt is stirred up at times towards the vulnerable, the marginalised and migrants” and also warned against elected officials who “yield to the logic of fear, which only leads to isolation from others”.
God is expected to talk to the late Pope Francis personally next week about possible sanctions on Vance for the “wholly egotistical and self-serving” visit, with deporting the Vice President to Hell thought to be the favoured option, the Almighty’s spokesperson said.
“In his wrath, God believes the only way for someone as arrogant as Vance to get the message is to throw the Good Book at him and hand him over to Satan.”
God is known to have previously ruled that former British Prime Minister Liz “Lettuce” Truss should, upon her demise, be deported to Hell for her “cruel and wanton” visit to the ailing Queen Elizabeth II shortly before the monarch’s death in 2022.
A spokes-demon for Hell said the Devil was excited about the proposed plan for the Vice President and had already picked out the perfect spot for a good Catholic like Vance to spend eternity. “It’s right next to Pius XII. Some people call the guy ‘Hitler’s pontiff.’”
King mistakes Luxon for door-to-door salesman
King Charles III is said to have been mystified by a visit from a man claiming to be the Prime Minister of New Zealand. According to a palace insider, the King was having a nice cup of Darjeeling tea with honey and milk when there was a knock at the door at Windsor Castle. As it was the butler’s day off and Camila was having a nice lie in, the King decided to answer the door himself for a treat.
“On the door step, he found a man who said he was from New Zealand and wanted to sell him some butter and beef,” the insider says. “The King took him to be a door-to-door salesman, told him he wasn’t interested and quickly closed the door, hoping the fellow would go away. But the man kept knocking, and began yelling that he was the Prime Minister of New Zealand.” Police later moved the man on.
A spokesperson for Christopher Luxon said “it was all a big misunderstanding”. The PM had received a much better reception when he knocked on a door in Downing Street where he managed to sell a small meat pack of lamb chops, pork sausages and beef mince as well as a couple of bottles of decent pinot noir before being moved on by police.
“Spite” snap election expected to end Seymour’s Deputy PM dream
All political parties in Parliament with the exception of Act are believed to be secretly planning what sources are calling a “spite” snap election to keep David Seymour from becoming Deputy Prime Minister.
Under Act’s coalition agreement with National, Seymour will become Deputy PM on May 31, taking over from NZ First leader Winston Peters. However, senior members of National, NZ First, Labour, the Greens and Te Pāti Māori are believed to have agreed that a snap election is the only way keep Seymour from the job.
One senior National MP, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said it was clear since Act won a record 11 seats and become part of the present coalition that Seymour had become a “total big head” and his “delusions of grandeur” were getting on everyone’s nerves.
“Nobody can stand the guy,” the MP said. “And everything he touches turns to crap, like the exploding school lunch and the Treaty Principles Bill debacles. Then we discovered Mr Cut Government Waste’s new Ministry for Regulation has a much higher average salary than any other department, and that he has also lumped the taxpayer with a $10 million bill for just 215 charter school students. And no one, not even his own MPs, can understand why the guy wrote that 1012-word letter to police supporting Philip Polkinghorne.”
The unnamed politician said MPs believed Seymour was already an “insufferable publicity hog” and the title of Deputy Prime Minister would only make him a greater burden for the coalition and Parliament. “Everyone agrees that a spite snap election is needed to get rid of him.”
Multiple sources expected the snap election would be announced after Seymour used the phrase “Don’t you know who I am?” for the first time.
Political quiz of the week
Why is Minister for the South Island James Meager puckering up to a picture of National MP Hamish Campbell?
A/ It was love at first sight.
B/ He wasn’t wearing his glasses.
C/ He’s zany.
D/ It remains a mystery.
