Will becoming PM kill Bill at the ballot box?
Is it the Max Factor and, I need to spend time with the family, which is of course far, far too late, or is it sheer fatigue and boredom?
John Key always sold himself as a non-career politician, a hobbyist who boasted to his wife when they were courting, that ‘one day I will be the Prime Minister’. Now that he has knocked that bastard off, he has given the nod to his replacement, the faded dollar Bill … English.
It doesn’t matter how much the so-called ‘regeneration’ of the National Party has happened, the idea of Paula Benefit and Simon Bridges chasing the second to top job, demonstrates the deficit.
As election year looms, once again Key dangled tax cuts when the country is crying out for money to be sunk into desperately needed infrastructure, and we are being led to believe that the Minister of Finance has performed an enviable economic miracle.
Back in the mists of time, when English took the party to an alltime low and lost an election, I will never forget walking past Parliament and seeing him descend the steps of the Beehive alone.
There was a small protest happening and the participants, catching sight of a familiar face, seized upon the politician and upbraided him. He had just been sacked as leader and had suffered great loss of face. So where was the support, the colleagues, friends and flunkies to slip him out the back Jack, or take him off for a commiserating drop?
The Prime Minister, till this morning, has heavily shouldertapped his deputy and perhaps handed him a poisoned chalice, so Shrugger Key, in his fervent quest for legacy, can look good when English loses once again.
English has already gone to the polls and been found unattractive to the electorate, so what has changed in the years since? Association with brand Key, when Big Daddy isn’t there to lend him the low wattage of his charisma, makes him vulnerable to the populace, and a mark to the electorate soaked in identity politics.
Labour Party leader Andrew Little might be dour and lack lustre, a non-performer with the media, but the upside of that leadership style is that he sells himself on ‘what you see is what you get’ kind of no frills leadership.
He was the antidote to the Key charisma. But now that Little might be most probably, as of writing, up against another low watt candidate, the whole game has changed. Blingish could make Little look like Hugh Grant on a good day, as long as there are no bottoms involved.
With Grant Robertson and Jacinda Ardern hovering for the pounce when the enduring and clever Annette King has the best chance of breasting the tape, there could be more drama in the leftie offing. Paul Henry was no fan of the King, till he put her up against Crusher and she shone like the fixed star in the firmament she is.
Little has managed to give much needed discipline and leadership to a party, which has always been the broadest of churches. With the Daves in the rear vision distance - David Cunliffe finally out of the picture, and David Shearer going to a respectable United Nations job leaving a possible by-election in his moral wake, watch that space as the Christmas decorations go up and any fairy could be a-top of the tree come 2017.
In a year that has been dramatic with a capital D – the Trump card played, and in our particular backyard pond, Key shock resigning to give up the kingdom for the woman he loves, and his errant son, currently overdosing in white male privilege, anything could happen.
I don’t know who I disrespect more – David Lange for giving it up for the Pope (Margaret) masking sheer incompetence and cowardice over dealing with Richard Prebble and the Rogering of the Douglas, or Key’s boredom and fatigue with the job.
Let’s raise a glass for civil servants, currently wandering without a home in the capital. Celebrate your inner beige. You are appreciated.
English has already gone to the polls and been found unattractive to the electorate, so what has changed in the years since?