Is English suffering the baby blues?
It can’t be much fun being Bill English these days. The Gods have been smiling on Labour as the political year gets underway. Jacinda Ardern has been boxing clever – outflanking National on trade and industrial relations, earning the grudging plaudits of National’s business allies. Even the Government’s books are in better shape than expected.
But it’s the baby bombshell that really pulled the rug out from under the National leader. It’s not just that it has sucked up all the political oxygen, though it has.
There is symbolism in spades. It spells generational change – a change that’s not just about age, but about attitude. Can a woman be pregnant and prime minister at the same time? Of course she can, is how today’s generation answers that question. Older voters – male or female – are either ambivalent or divided.
But it’s up to Ardern to prove the doubters wrong and she has time on her side. The baby will be in its terrible twos by the time the election rolls around.
So if it was a miserable end to 2017 for English and the National caucus – and it was, though anger sustained them – 2018 hasn’t been much better.
Next week is the chance to pick up some momentum – after Parliament sits for the first time on Tuesday, English and Ardern will go head to head in a ‘‘big Wednesday’’ of political speeches. English will deliver his ‘‘state of the nation’’ speech, focusing on the economy being in good shape, while Ardern’s will tick off Labour’s 100-day plan and hone in on child poverty.
English is where Labour was in 2008 – trying to get cut through up
English is where Labour was in 2008 – trying to get cut through up against a popular and charismatic new leader.
against a popular and charismatic new leader. National can of course console itself that Ardern is still more popular than her party, and National still more popular than Labour, but it doesn’t change the maths. National couldn’t govern on its current support, not unless it can manufacture a coalition ally between now and 2020 – whether that be NZ First under a new leader (Winston Peters’ grudge against National may be neverending), or a new political movement.
National is going to have to hold that thought for the next three years.
So its strategy has to be to build its vote back to a monster 47 or 48 per cent plus. Easier said than done. It got there under the phenomenon that was John Key – and it got close again under English. But probably even English doesn’t believe he can take them there again.
Being Opposition leader will slowly erode his brand as a safe, pair of hands – the finance minister who got us through the global financial crisis. Already this week, the headlines have all been about English ‘‘slamming’’ the latest Government announcements, or getting a rough ride at Ra¯ tana. It’s bread and butter Opposition stuff. And voters eventually turn off.
Besides, voters don’t look back – when 2020 rolls around, they are going to be looking for a lot more than a retread of the last government.
But English has been around long enough to know this. It’s an open secret that he had put an exit strategy in place ahead of the last election. That was put on ice when John Key decided to step down.
It was English’s strong sense of duty to National – and his longstanding ambition to be prime minister – that convinced him to stay.
It was no doubt that same sense of duty that persuaded English to stay on as leader after the election, while John Key has a new lease of life on the international speaking circuit and in his various new business roles.
But the caucus also delivered English a message that they needed him to stay on for continuity. If English had fallen on his sword, it would have plunged them into a wearying and rushed leadership contest. No one wanted that. Which is not to say that the leadership manoeuvring is not already underway.
Simon Bridges, Judith Collins, Paula Bennett and Nikki Kaye are all starting to build a case. None is likely to move against him, however. English has earned the right to choose the timing of his departure, and it won’t be when someone is ready to plant a knife in his back. But that time is not now.
So what’s National’s strategy? That debate is still happening in National. The priority before Christmas was to get through to the summer recess without the emotion, anger and exhaustion of the previous few months taking a toll. Some former ministers channelled that emotion into overseas holidays, time with family, or new exercise regimes. Paula Bennett even had weightloss surgery.
But if the fightback begins now, it is still not clear what shape that should take. National is keeping it simple for now. Look through Ardern’s belated honeymoon over the baby news, play up incompetence, mismanagement and paralysis. Target the tensions between NZ First and the Greens. It’s the water on a stone concept – eroding confidence in the new Government, drip by drip.
National already has an ace up its sleeve – Labour’s first-week bungling delivered National a majority on two critical select committees, health and law and order. It is a recipe for stalled momentum, in two areas where Labour needs most to make progress. But they will be mostly small victories.
National’s internal debate is what it needs to do to transform itself into a more contemporary and relevant Opposition – and how on earth it manages to get heard over the megaphone that Labour is holding as a first-term government.