Who will fill these giant shoes?

John Key leaves a jagged hole at the top of the National Party. None of his possible successors can fill that gap. None have his skills or his odd, blokey charisma. The party will be tempted to pick Bill English as Key’s anointed successor and as the ‘‘business as usual’’ candidate. English represents continuity minus the flair. That might not do the trick. This is an old Government and putting in the long-serving deputy might just make it look suddenly tired and dull. Sometimes a ‘‘safe pair of hands’’ is not enough.

English has a dry wit and a good brain. His understated Southland charm will appeal to some. He can’t connect with the voters the way Key can.

As minister of finance he can take some credit for a steady and consistent macroeconomic policy. But he has made a mess of his social housing portfolio, with few providers stepping forward to make it work.

He can be quite uncertain in policy-making and his manner is often damagingly diffident. His disastrous defeat as party leader in 2002 was partly due to this lack of decisiveness, although the circumstances were of course different. National was bound to fail its first test as opposition after a long period in government.

Key says English has grown and changed since then. But he is still the same person with the same shortcomings.

National might do better to take a risk and do something bold. Picking Paula Bennett as leader might pay off. She has a populist appeal that English does not. She is a Westie and in that sense is not a typical National leader, which might be an advantage.

She would offer change and a bit of flair, especially if English was kept on as finance minister. The combination would offer ‘‘continuity with change’’, to use the slogan which Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull used and which was rightly and mercilessly lampooned by Veep, the American political comedy. Most third-term governments can’t renew themselves. This Government, however, unlike other longserving administrations, is still popular. The trouble is that its main source of popularity is leaving.

None of the other candidates for Key’s job have much popular appeal. Steven Joyce has even less than English. Amy Adams might have strengths in policy, but she utterly lacks the common touch. Her refusal to inflation-proof the compensation payment to the wrongly imprisoned Teina Pora looked heartless, and it was.

Judith Collins, meanwhile, is both ambitious and blind to her glaring political faults. Her endorsement by Don Brash is something like a kiss of death, although she might not realise it. What appeals to the party’s ideological hard right does not appeal to the wider electorate.

Opposition parties will want Collins to become leader: that would seal National’s fate at the next election. As a consolation prize, they would like to see a defeated Collins carry on campaigning and undermining the new leader.

The risk is that National’s bubble now bursts and all the tensions within the party, long suppressed during the miracle years of John Key, are exposed for everyone to see.

Nobody in National has his odd, blokey charisma.