James Weir recaps Albo’s secret dinner after TV disaster

After a trainwreck debate and whirlwind city tour, Anthony Albanese escaped the crowds for a meeting that he thought was secret.

After a trainwreck leaders’ debate that was compared to an episode of Jerry Springer, Anthony Albanese embarked on a three-state travel blitz that started at the centre of the danger zone: an all-boys high school.

It was the riskiest move we’ve seen either leader make this entire election campaign.

The one fear all adults have in common? Being mocked by a shed full of teenage boys. And that’s exactly what happened Monday morning as the bell rang for homeroom.

The opposition leader thought it’d be a cute idea to visit St Mary’s Cathedral College – his alma mater on the fringe of Sydney’s CBD – as he entered week five of a flub-fuelled campaign.

Little did he know, things wouldn’t go to plan. After all, this was a high school.

Think Parliament House is a battleground? Spend five minutes in the tuckshop line at a high school. Your self-esteem will be destroyed in 30 seconds flat and you should just consider yourself lucky if you don’t get dacked by a guy named Zayne.

If only Albo knew that most of the boys were posing for the photo ironically.

RELATED: James Weir recaps the first leaders’ debate

As the media contingent on the campaign trail arrived and set up, a threatening energy buzzed around the undercover area.

“Go ScoMo!” one boy yelled out while locked in a vicious game of handball, anticipating the opposition leader’s imminent arrival and wanting to be among the first to mock it.

It set off a chain reaction as others joined in on an improvised chant to a soundtrack of clanging locker doors being slammed along the back wall.

Storm clouds rolled over and the fluorescent lights inside the shed flooded the space with an ominous glow.

Then came the call that set off a stampede.

“AlBo iS cOmMmMiNg!” one kid yelled in a mocking tone.

Hundreds of teenage boys – still bleary eyed at 8.30am with mussed bed hair, rumpled uniforms and Nutri-Grain breath – swarmed and held up their phones as they formed a mosh pit around the opposition leader.

“ALBO, I LOVE YOU!” one boy screamed, sarcastically.

“Albo, ya tool!” another blurted a more direct heckle.

That’s when the sound of booing started to fade in, like the rumble of faraway thunder. The jeers were only coming from a few boys but, in an enclosure of concrete and steel, it echoed around, almost hauntingly. Albo’s staffers tensed up, praying the boos wouldn’t catch on and grow into a sonic Mexican wave.

Why is it that all school undercover areas are seemingly purpose-built to foster and enhance mass bullying?

Security guards got ready to pounce, lest the boys drag Albo into the bathroom and dunk his head in a toilet to give him a swirlie.

There was every possibility the gathered teens were about to start chanting ScoMo’s own schoolyard taunt for his rival – “Harry Potter”, an insult to the opposition leader’s trendy tortoiseshell glasses.

Are they Harry Potter glasses? Picture: Sam Ruttyn

The atmosphere steadily became more manic in the school shed and reached a fever pitch when Albo made his way to the centre. The crowd of boys, encouraged by the TV cameras and the teenage urge to belittle any adult who carries even a modicum of authority, surged into a full-on scrum around the hopeful Prime Minister.

Suddenly, the St Mary’s Old Boy was wielding an iPhone and proposing a selfie with the mob. The boys clamoured closer and climbed onto metal bench seats.

Albo stretched an arm high above the group and smiled like a coach celebrating a grand final win with his team. If only he knew that most of the boys were posing for the photo ironically.

It wasn’t the only mob piling on at that moment. Online, thousands of Australians were scolding both leaders for behaving like schoolboys during the previous night’s Channel 9 debate after it spun out of control and descended into an unsophisticated yell-fest. Twitter had effectively dragged Mr Albanese and Mr Morrison into the principal’s office to scold them like naughty students.

“Scott Morrison didn’t have anything to say except shouting, he only had smears and that smirk throughout it all,” Albo told reporters during a press conference on the school’s basketball court, seemingly refusing to take any of the blame.

Hours later, after jetting down to Adelaide, he swiftly ended a press conference before he could answer a question on whether he was embarrassed about what unfolded during the debate and if he’d claim any of the responsibility.

When asked further about the backlash during an appearance in the marginal seat of Boothby, the Opposition Leader not only refused to answer but almost tripped over while frantically crossing the road to escape the question.

By the time he landed in Melbourne that evening – a visit that completed the day’s capital city trifecta which was probably more aimed at exhausting the already fatigued media pack on board than anything else – the social media posts were piling up along with the opinion columns analysing how two grown men hoping to be Prime Minister could actively torpedo such an important forum and think we’d be impressed with it.

File photo of the secret dining trio. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Gary Ramage

RELATED: James Weir recaps the second leaders’ debate

Both parties were no doubt in damage control. But there was something extra Albo was battling: the criticism of his fancy new spectacles. He upgraded his daggy dad glasses to the boy wizard specs a few months ago and, while they look stylish, they’ve proven to be a hindrance this election now that the PM is making fun of them.

Over the past week, the Prime Minister has used his own press conferences to tease his rival’s eyewear by referring to him as the magical JK Rowling character. Even during Sunday night’s car crash debate, some lady on the panel used her question to insult the glasses.

“I had a listener contact me this week to say that you used to be a radical socialist but because you have a new set of glasses, how can we believe you are a reformed man?” she said.

That kind of criticism would make anyone self-conscious. It’s almost as bad as getting taunted in a school tuckshop line by a guy called Zayne. Even if you’re running for the prime ministership of Australia – you still doubt yourself.

And doubting himself, Albo was.

That night, upon landing in Melbourne, the air was crisp and the toll of the almost two-month campaign had set in. That’s when I walked in on the opposition leader’s secret meeting with high-profile Labor Senator Penny Wong and Shadow Treasurer Jim Chalmers, who’d been at the day’s events in Adelaide.

Was it a dogged pursuit of journalism that brought me to the locked-down restaurant that night? Or was it simply the overwhelming urge to drink a bottle of house wine at the nearest bar while trying to write something about that day’s boring hospital announcement?

The answer’s not important. The real story is the clandestine meeting.

After I burst into the empty establishment, Albo and Penny looked up and stared in terror. It was like they thought they were about to get bounced during their entree.

Whatever the trio was talking about before the intrusion immediately came to a halt. What ensued was a stuttering, fake conversation between terrified eye flicks as my boots squeaked around on the marble tiles while I tried to find a waitress.

Several minutes passed. We all kept sharing awkward, silent glances.

But that’s not the headline. The real news is something far more explosive: Albo wasn’t wearing his Harry Potter glasses.

The man was spectacle-less.

Clearly the week’s onslaught of insults about his glasses had gotten to him.

Were the trio meeting to discuss the finer points of the next day’s major $2.2 billion public transportation announcement they’d be making in Melbourne’s Box Hill? Or was this a damage control meeting between senior members of the Labor Party to help their leader decide if he should undergo emergency Lasik surgery before voters hit the booths on May 21?

Or there’s another theory. Sitting in the dim bistro, the bare faced Albo wasn’t even squinting to see his dinner guests. Could it be that the man fighting to become our next Prime Minister has actually been wearing prop glasses?

In politics, and high school, image is everything.

Twitter, Facebook: @hellojamesweir