2013 ELECTIONS: THE CONCESSION SPEECH

Let me make one thing perfectly clear - I did not want to make this concession speech. I did not wish to concede this election. You may have noticed that it has been some nine days since polls closed and that I am only now standing on this stage because my staff and other concerned party members are behind me goading me with pointed sticks and pitchforks in a decidedly non-ironic fashion. They tell me that the numbers are against me, that I do not have enough votes to govern and I say that numbers can be  treacherous lying little scum pig bastard things of no real value in determining a proper and useful result. However I am forced to accept that I may be in the minority on this point. Before I move on to grudging congratulations and the all-important business of finding people to blame let me just say that although we may not have received as many votes as we had hoped, these votes were of an indisputably higher value than the votes cast against us, and were cast by an infinitely better class of person. Quality votes. These votes were better-looking, better-educated, and more tasteful than the other votes, and that should count for something. Apparently it doesn't. Now there's your real need for electoral reform. You unthinking bastards.

Of course it's easy in a situation like this to go looking for people or things to blame so let's start there: I must, reluctantly, accept some small portion of the blame myself. It was my idea to conduct much of my campaigning in a sort of 4.0 Redux Cockney patois. I felt sure when I said things like "Stifle the Janet's me old toxicologist, here come the Rupert Bears with their new boots and panties" that it was perfectly clear I was making a trenchant criticism of the Oppositions position on climate change. Possibly I need to look at the whole concept of "perfectly clear". Perhaps I need better people working for me. Or perhaps it is simply  the fault of globalist cyborgs. Or New Zealanders. I really want to blame New Zealanders here. I'm not sure what they've done, but I'm sure they've done it. They are at heart a bunch of shifty and dangerous swine and I've never for a moment been fooled by that whole naïve friendly furry little hobbit-lord-of-the-rings bullshit they have going on. They come over here and steal our jobs and our women and I'm not at all convinced about this non-nuclear stuff, they've probably got a bunch of nuclear warheads pointed towards us even as we speak .... did I just say all that out loud ? About New Zealanders ? Oh fuck. Ah well, what's it going to do, cost me the election ?

And let's not get into the whole texting-photos-of-my-knee to a woman who wasn't my wife. It is preposterous to suggest that this may have cost me the election. This was purely and simply a media beat-up, my wife is totally understanding, and I thought that using my "maiden name" Nee Trembler was a rather witty joke. I have since been told it wasn't. Everyone's a critic. You can all fuck off. We all know that what really cost us the election was the decision by our so-called allies in the Ferret Party to direct their preferences in the Senate to the Ice-Cream Headache party. You dickheads. Seriously. What were you thinking?  You won't have me to kick around anymore. Unless I decide to recontest the leadership. I've got some great new ideas .... stop that .. stop poking me with that stick .. stop it .. that really hurts ... bastards