All those surely-not options

In what world would that make sense?

All right, that would be a world where Winston is a more repellent partner than the Greens. Not necessarily an alternate reality, perhaps, if you look at it from strictly National’s perspective.

It would be a world in which it’s it better to align your fortunes with a huddle of otherworldly idealists, capable of fascinating political ineptitude, rather than a populist in pragmatist’s clothing whose undeniable ... erm ... eptitude is itself a massive worry given his capacity to turn on you.

In any case, it’s the Greens perspective that makes the deal more emphatically unlikely. A great chunk of their membership would regard it as quisling treachery. The party would be at great risk of tearing apart.

There’s surely scant prospect of English’s team being able to fashion a deal that has the Greens thinking that this changes everything, without simultaneously offending National’s own support base too egregiously.

That leaves the possibility that the Greens are persuaded to accept a lesser offer on the basis that it is, simply, the best gettable. Exactly the sort of compromise they have resisted time and time again.

As for a Labour-NZ FirstGreens deal, the prospects remain faint but existent. The problem here isn’t just the particular antipathy Winston and his supporters have for the Greens. He also dislikes three-way deals of any sort because they involve too many parties who aren’t him.

He could live with a variant in which he and Labour form a coalition and the Greens, in return for some concessions, stay on the crossbenches, guaranteeing support only in the face of any motion of no confidence.

Right now a National-NZ First coalition still seems, by a long way, the most likely outcome. Winston can be a maddening man to negotiate with. But he isn’t the undisciplined figure he’s sometimes portrayed to be. He has been in this position before and twice has wound up supporting the party that claimed the strongest election-night support.

It’s entirely possible he has sized up a Bill English Government as an outfit he could work with. That doesn’t mean truly support. It means get his way, sufficiently often, in the midst of them.