IN THE RACE FOR OPPOSITION LEADER, the numbers are solidifying around Amy Adams. A consensus is forming among the journalists of the Parliamentary Press Gallery that Adams, with around 20 votes, is at least 2 or 3 votes ahead of her nearest rival, Simon Bridges. The moment Adams assures the National Party Board that she has no intention of dispensing with the services of National’s chief strategist, Steven Joyce, her lead will advance by at least 4 votes. At that point, Adams will be only 4 or 5 votes shy of the 29 votes she needs to become Leader of the Opposition. If Mark Mitchell can be enticed into Adams’ camp (with the offer of the Deputy’s spot, perhaps?) then it will require only 1 further defection from either Team Bridges or Team Collins for the game to be over.
A victory for Adams will not sit well with the National Party rank-and-file who, pretty obviously, favour Judith Collins for the role of Opposition leader. Moreover, the longer the race continues, the more pressure Collins’ rank-and-file supporters will be able to apply to their local and/or List MPs to give her their support.
Team Collins’ argument that only their candidate has the strength and decisiveness to keep National polling in the mid-40s is already beginning to tell with those MPs positioned at the bottom of National’s Party List contingent. Indeed, some have already moved quietly to join Collins’ very small band of supporters – just 4 to 7 strong at this stage.
From the vantage points of both Adams and the National Board, it therefore makes sense to hold the Leadership ballot as soon as possible.
The less time Team Collins has to raise a clamour from the membership for their candidate’s election, the easier it will be for Team Adams to nibble away at the edges of Bridges’ support.
The Board, meanwhile, has every reason to fear that Collins’ efforts to rouse the membership could very easily set the National Party up for exactly the same “Us” versus “Them” struggle that tore the Labour Party apart between 2011 and 2013. (That was the fight which erupted after Labour’s parliamentary caucus imposed a leader on the wider party organisation that it clearly did not want.) A swift and decisive victory by Adams would, from the Board’s point of view, be less likely to provoke such a debilitating outcome.
The pressure is, therefore, on Adams to accede quickly to Joyce’s and Mitchell’s demands, so that, having pocketed their votes, she can commence the deal-making required to deflate Bridge’s numbers.
This is the point at which Bridges would be well advised to secure what he can from his position (a place in Adam’s “Kitchen Cabinet”, perhaps?) by magnanimously marching as many of his followers as possible into her camp and, figuratively, crowning her National’s Queen before the smoke of battle has had time to clear. The title of “Queenmaker” is not one to be discarded lightly!
With the serried ranks of the now largely unified National Caucus arrayed against her, Collins could elect to either fight it out to the bitter end, or, to lower her banners and join in Adams’ victory feast.
That meal need not taste too bitter in Collins’ mouth. After all, a victory for Adams can only be interpreted as a victory for the Key-English status-quo. Collins and her followers, convinced as they are that, ideologically-speaking, the Key-English status-quo has positioned National well to the left of where its members and voters believe it should be, need only wait for the polls to register conservative New Zealand’s disappointment at the National caucus’s failure to elect their champion. When that happens, Team Collins’ banners can, once again, be unfurled; and the battle for the heart and soul of the National Party can recommence – minus Amy Adams.
Hmm… https://www.whaleoil.co.nz/2018/02/chris-trotter-bill-englishs-legacy-catholic-flavoured-conservatism/
?!?
Today’s news that the $11.7 billion Dollar maniac Steven Joyce has now entered the race for the top job for the National Party has really made this Political Party look so desperate now that we see in today’s latest Colman Brunton political poll shows Labour at a new high as the most preferred party at a whopping 48% popularity.
The old tired national Party are again slipping down their greasy pole now down to 43% so we see a collapse of the national Party really coming home to roost after they sold most of the countries assets to offshore investors so their work was done and there is no further use for them at all now, so “good riddance to bad rubbish” as National slips under the waves, Hooray for freedom from National economic bondage.
agree 100% clean green
Here here Cleangreen.
@CleanGreen.
You are spot on.
These 5 offerings are the best leadership material the National Party can offer New Zealand???
Seriously???
Hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah.
Or to put it even more simply, if Adams is elected, she won’t be around for long. That’s pretty obvious even without knowing the ins and outs of the political intrigue. She’s just not leadership material. She would be lucky to last until the next election.
Our Jacinda will be too good for Adams and Jacinda is continuing to build momentum but cannot be too complacent. She just needs her party and her coalition to watch her back and keep working on their plan as the gnats had no genuine plan to get us out of the shit. The gnats are very nasty, greedy, power hungry and desperate. And we all know that desperate people do desperate things and we are seeing this with now five wannabe gnats
As Tacitus wrote when observing two rival German tribes battling each other …” What better way to weaken Romes enemy’s than to let them slaughter each other ” …
They had it coming , and this is pay back for 9 years of the abuse of hundreds of thousands of New Zealanders.
Long may it continue.
Pure speculation. Unless, of course, you are a Nat Party insider?!
Adams will not survive long term if she gets the numbers.
She behaves if she is on speed.
Mark Mitchell is the most dangerous man in the National caucus and has powerful connections and support.
I think it would be to our countries detriment if he ever gets control.
At least Key smiled at his prey.
I predict Collins as leader and Joyce as deputy/finance.
I hope the Natz tear themselves apart elect a numpty and then tear themselves apart again when they slide in the polls. Rinse and repeat…… ad infinitum. Couldn’t happen to nicer bunch of mongrels!
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