Strap yourselves in, but trust me – Winston’s got this

Opinion

He’s known as the messiah in the Pacific, thanks to the billion dollars he screwed out of Labour. Never before has a foreign minister from a tiny party been so powerful in a region.

Imagine if he could leverage his way into becoming the prime minister in his own country, despite getting just 7 per cent of the popular vote?

Stop dreaming, OK, this is reality and it’s likely to happen next week when the real PM steps aside to become a mother for the first time. Although he doesn’t become acting king until the fulltime queen hands over power at the double doors of Auckland Hospital. Very smart. So to the next six weeks.

These are the questions people have been asking me: Can he cope? What will happen? What if there’s a crisis? Is he up to it?

Up to it? He might yet create a crisis just to prove he can cope, with charisma and a grin to boot.

Peters is the the most cunning and strategic politician I have known. A reckless madman in opposition, a meek and barely recognisable impersonator in office.

Hence why I say don’t panic, stay calm, Winston Raymond Peters has spent the best part of 40 years preparing. He knows what works, what doesn’t, what time to be home (mostly) and how to wing it, most of the time. The dress rehearsal has been exhausting, and dragged on a bit.

On his day, Peters is superb. Funny, warm, constructive, full of bravado and the proverbial, oneliners and words you’ve never heard of. At his worst, he’s unprepared, unbelievable, destructive, abrasive, and, yes, full of the proverbial.

He is a walking hand grenade with his trigger-happy fingers playing with the pin as a laugh, while his lawyer’s fingers tap away on a typewriter claiming somehow the establishment media is to blame for his sagging reputation. Peters, though, is now the establishment and he’s rewriting the rules of this small club of perks, pay, power and privilege.

If cornered, the Peters of the past would walk towards a fight, deny his name was Winston, play victim, blame the media, talk directly to the pensioners and claim there’s a war against him from the country’s elite, without a shred of evidence to back any of it up. Ten out of 10 for antics.

But that’s Winston, or it was. That was as a much younger man in his youthful 60s. Winston has settled, he’s a calmer, happier, less angry man because he’s got his way. And he needs a legacy.

This new-generation Winston is like your long-lost uncle returning from war. He’s a bit shell-shocked, battle-weary and hardened, but truth is, he’s alive and grateful. Peters has escaped the enemy, survived being sacked by party bosses and remarkably returned to politics when voters had earlier sent him home with his tail between his legs and his party in tatters.

So with most of the chapters of his life written, he’s hardly going to want the final few pages to read: I couldn’t cope, the big-boy pants just wouldn’t fit. So I had a meltdown.

No way is Peters going to allow the next six weeks to define him in a negative light. Peters is desperate to prove he has what it takes. Stand by: if ministers stuff up, Peters will go all Muldoon on them. He won’t and can’t sack anyone, without calling home to the PM with the real power, but they’ll get a tonguelashing, and Jacinda Ardern will no doubt mostly approve.

Ibet this Peters-in-power period actually works. I think he will surprise on the upside. He just needs to read, work hard and be consistent for six weeks –easier said than done. It will also show MMP is a tormented and flexible beast that screams ‘‘never say never’’.

This is Winston’s first, last and only chance to prove he’s got what it takes. So we can finally see what we may have missed out on, but also we get to hand it back when it no longer fits.

It’s the perfect test run, really, for a 73-year-old product that’s had a 40-year strained, imperfect and chequered relationship with Kiwi households.

National will now need six weeks of extra-strength pain relief, because Winston in charge is going to hurt. He’s sure to remind them, too, perhaps daily.

This would never have happened under Bill English. Ardern’s pregnancy sealed National’s fate and Mr Cunning’s place in history. This will work because it has to. It’s in no-one’s interest for this to fail, except National’s.

It’s certainly not in the national interest that this go belly up – business is jumpy enough as it is. If Labour and Winston stuff this up, they will be punished.

But I actually have faith, Peters cares about his country, especially if he’s running it. And let’s be honest, Winston in his sleep is better than the next cab off the rank, Kelvin Davis, who was last seen frozen with stagefright just thinking about plan C.

Strap yourselves in, folks, and good luck Winston.

Now let’s pray . . .