Hughes hauls PM out of hole

What’s cute, cuddly, vegetarian and suddenly popular with Prime Minister John Key?

Green Party MP Gareth Hughes just overtook a pair of pandas to become this week’s most beloved political figure.

With a deft manouevre, Hughes has delivered Red Peak to the voting public. Legislation adding the wild-card geometric design to November’s ballot was brought to Parliament yesterday.

While Labour and National squabbled over the referendum, Hughes found a solution to which no political strings were attached.

This is a shrewd move for his party, which is trying to position itself as Parliament’s new pragmatists, ready to find compromise with any other party.

They gave Key no real choice – to reject their overtures would have risked a backlash and contradicted earlier statements.

But this is also a handy get-out for Key. He painted himself into a corner over the Twitterati’s favourite ensign.

National could have added Red Peak off his own bat weeks ago, but allowed a churlish spat with Labour to get in the way.

And although Red Peak is popular with the social media-ites, polls suggest it is unlikely to supplant his favoured silver fern emblem.

So, the Greens find themselves hauling National out of a hole.

Although they once played footsie, working together on mine clean-ups and cycleways, the relationship slid downhill as National’s terms extended.

After a bout of post-election soul-searching (and change of coleadership in James Shaw), the Greens recognise they need to look like a party that is ready for powersharing.

The Rugby World Cup booze bill was a sorry episode in which they found themselves on the opposite side of public opinion.

Now they’ve hauled aboard the populist bandwagon and are crowd sourcing policy from Facebook campaigns. At what cost? The Greens are extremely unlikely to support National in Government. But now relations with Labour will be strained, at least in the short term.

The Greens sided with Key in the flag feud, handing him another opportunity to publicly flay leader Andrew Little.

Rubbing salt into the wound, Hughes struck a deal with National to vote down any Labour amendments.

The infantile wrangling over the flag should die down until November’s vote.

Unless the social media campaign for laser kiwi is resurrected.

Your move, David Seymour.