English is in the box seat - for now anyway
backing Bill, offering the backbench the chance to vote for English and have a change agent in the leadership team as well. He might even think he is doing English a favour, and he may be right. But spruiking change while guaranteeing continuity is a hard sell.
Nothing so far has changed the sense that with strong front-bench support the race is English’s to lose. Of those who have publicly declared all have thrown their lot in with him.
It would be gob-smacking if Judith Collins prevailed. Even those in caucus who share her views doubt she is electable. Her messages echo 1996 when Jenny Shipley took against Jim Bolger’s accommodations with Winston Peters.
If the party was in the doldrums and needed to ‘‘reconnect with its base’’ – as it did when Don Brash took the reins after English’s disastrous reign back in 2002 – then she would have a ready constituency. But it doesn’t – yet.
Coleman is unlikely to get the numbers either, though cannot be so easily ruled out.
His public backing for health and education spending – over tax cuts – is enormously significant and will resonate long after the leadership fight has settled.
His best outcome, depending on the numbers he can amass on Monday, might be as the deputy to English in a unifying ticket. If English wins at a canter he may have the power to look elsewhere, which is where Paula Bennett may come in.
It will be a caucus vote, but the leader’s views cannot be ignored. But neither can the urge for ‘‘generational change’’ – which begs the question: Who is in the generation that will be showed the Cabinet door?
No names have been put in the frame yet, but the usual suspects are Gerry Brownlee, Craig Foss, Louise Upston, and Nick Smith (although English is a long-time friend and loyal to Smith).
Anne Tolley could be shuffled into the Speaker’s chair if David Carter could be shuffled out of it. And Hekia Parata and Murray McCully have at least one foot in the exit lounge and could be fast-tracked out.
But no-one should assume the current leadership spill marks the end of history.
Collins is unlikely to let her ambition rest, and will agitate more strongly if National wins a fourth term but is beholden to – and makes concessions to – NZ First or the Maori Party.
Coleman’s feint to the left, with his move away from tax cuts towards extra social spending – to some extent already prefigured in Key’s soft-sell reference to a ‘‘tax and family package’’ – marks a new fault line in the party.
So English may only be an interim leader, a half-way house on the road to regeneration.
Certainly if he loses next year, and perhaps even if he wins, National may need another round of blood-letting before its future direction is set and ‘‘generational change’’ is achieved.
English has the power to lessen that possibility by dealing a more generous hand to the next generation of ministers.
But for National the cycle is beginning to turn away from the Key years and towards a much more uncertain future.