The polling industry, whose only answer to fairly obvious questions seems to be “this is just a snapshot in time”, may have trouble explaining the past week of polling in this country.

There was one on Tuesday night and one on Wednesday morning. They have completely different results.

One has Luxon as the most popular leader.

One has Hipkins as the most popular leader.

One has National leading Labour.

One has Labour leading National.

One has the current Government as the current Government.

One has a new Government, with the current Government out.

It doesn’t get a lot more contrasting than that.

Even if you accept a lot of the numbers are tightish, some of the numbers aren't even within the margin of error.

It's almost as though the polls aren't accurate.

It's almost as though you could ring up 1000 people and get one answer, then ring up another set of 1000 people and get a completely different answer.

If you can do that, why would you pay money to people who will tell you these things mean anything?

At least TVNZ use commercial money to pay for this stuff.

Radio New Zealand, who seem to have taken over from TV3, use our money. And given they have just had a budget cut and given they are losing their audience at a rate of knots, I'm not sure this can be classed as quality expenditure.

I went to their website yesterday. The headline was "What the polls are telling us in 7 charts".

And there they were. There was lots of colour, lots of lines up and down, and squiggles.

But I already knew, given I had seen the charts from the night before, that either their charts meant nothing, or if they did mean something, then the other guy's charts weren't up to much.

Or quite possibly if we did this charade for a third time, they would both be exposed as having shonky numbers.

But remember: "they are only a snapshot in time". Except given they were done at the same time, they aren't, are they?

So what are they, other than a very large waste of time and money?

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At the end of each week, Mike Hosking takes you through the big-ticket items and lets you know what he makes of it all.

David Seymour: 7/10

In Britain, debating as we speak. But last weekend he ascended to Deputy Prime Minister and gave an excellent speech about what our country can be. It was uplifting, and uplifting is good.

Chris Bishop: 7/10

Was at the music awards and expressed an opinion. People of the left didn’t appear to like opinions. That's not as uplifting.

Mitch Barnett: 3/10

Professionals get injured, but a season ender is a cruel blow, especially given this is our year.

The Waiuku raised crossing: 2/10

Because it's bollocks, but at least it's on hold.

Polls: 1/10

Joke of the week. Buy a dartboard and pretend it means something.

Six million: 7/10

Our population prediction by 2040. I like more people because more people brings growth. I've always thought we are way too small.

LISTEN ABOVE FOR MIKE HOSKING'S FULL WEEK IN REVIEW

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I've struggled with a couple of authors this week – Jacinda Ardern and Jake Tapper.

What I struggle with is one of them is making money out of the fact they made an astonishing hash of their job, quit, bailed out of the country and is now collecting money for retelling what happened in a way that would suggest no carnage was left behind.

The other is making money by exposing what he watched unfold in front of his eyes for four years and really did nothing about.

I'm not sure who the bigger fraud is.

The Ardern book is widely traversed and has been marketed very well internationally. My wife showed me a snippet from Oprah.

Let's be frank: post WeightWatchers and Ozempic Oprah is not exactly reputationally untouched herself. She's fascinated with Ardern, and it appears to be around kindness. I bet you anything you want Oprah doesn’t have the slightest idea about how the country was wrecked under Ardern.

She sees what Ardern wants you to see: fragile, huggy people who run things with good vibes.

In the meantime, at CNN, I have no idea what Jake Tapper was watching between 2020-24 because we all watched the same thing. Except CNN wasn’t spending a lot of time saying "hey, have you noticed the old guy is getting worse by the day?".

Given that was CNN's job is it any wonder they rate the way they do? But for Tapper to then go out and monetise what he was already, allegedly, being paid to do, seems a new low of sorts to me.

But back with Ardern. In one review former Labour Party leader David Cunliffe runs the classic line of "I have a different recollection”. That's in response to Ardern's attack on him whereby she essentially calls him a fraud and how she couldn’t understand how he got the top job and not her mate Grant.

You had to, she said (probably in tears), question his authenticity.

Are you serious? Authenticity? From Jacinda Markle? The only bit of marketing that seems to have been missed along with the hand-wringing interviews on Radio New Zealand and TVNZ is some Ardern jam or cake recipes.

If she had just been useless, it might have been alright. Hopeless, but didn’t break the china.

But she wasn’t. She was dangerous, she was the pulpit of truth, she was a control freak, and she was a narcissist dressed up in Kate Sylvester pretending she wrote back to all the kids.

She wrecked the joint then collected the dough in Boston.

Tapper and Ardern made money for failing to do their job.

There should be a law against it.

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