As if millions of National Party voters suddenly cried out in terror and were silenced.

This just came across my wife’s Facebook page.

They’re hauling out John Key in the last week of the campaign, and to specifically talk about how you voters can’t take any risks and must Party Vote National to be sure.

Ok, bleeding obvious of course but why now and why Key? Luxon’s also giving this message I’m sure but is Key being brought back because he’s seen as successful and popular while Luxon…. isn’t? And aside from the standard request for the Party Vote why the emphasis on the alternative being an unstable government? What’s changed in the polls?

Usually I’m not the No Minister blogger that you turn to for information about NZ politics, since we have other bloggers here to do that and I don’t follow the TV, radio or dead-tree news closely enough to give much of an opinion. Also because I regard our political scene as dead when it comes to a contest of ideas, with only the usual swing between the Left pushing some new dingbat scheme and the “Right” complaining about it – for the moment, until they can figure out how to manage it better once it’s bedded in.

But even I’ve noticed Winston Peter’s rising from the dead (again) after several years of quiet and the increasing likelihood that National will have to deal with him as well as ACT to form a government after the October 14 election. Not a happy prospect when Peters and Seymour clearly hate eachother’s guts.

That isn’t good but it’s been fueled by two mistakes by National, and one by ACT.

First, the elephant in the room

National and ACT’s adamant refusal to strongly acknowledge the mistakes made during the Chinese Lung Rot madness, leaving people to wonder if the same thing will happen again when the next pandemic hits. ACT are also guilty of this, and it’s allowed Winston to find his triennial issue to exploit to get past the precious 5%. Sure, the bastard was in the thick of it himself in 2020 and punched out Tweets saying that beneficiaries might lose their money if they didn’t get vaxxed – but note the slipperiness even then as he attacked only beneficiaries, not “the workers” or “the decent people of NZ” or anybody else who might vote WinstonFirst.

This is not about appealing to the anti-vax brigade. There are a lot of people out there who got one or more C-19 “jabs” and who are now very angry that it didn’t work as advertised for them (they still got Covid-19 and passed it on) when in many cases they were forced into it. Not to mention the 2021 lockdowns that failed to work as the 2020 fluke had.

A simple admission that things could have been done better and that there will be a full-scale Royal Commission from which lessons will be drawn and applied to future pandemic plans (not just left to fringe fanatics like Michael Baker).

Hells teeth, over on the Daily Blog the Screaming Beard is tearing his hair out as to why Labour are not trumpeting their C-19 success, completely missing – as is usual for his echo-chamber world – the possibility that Labour are not boasting about this because they’ve done their internal polling and research and know how many of their own supporters are pissed off about the measures in hindsight, something that should be apparent to “Bomber” from his own comments threads (and sometimes I get that he does, at least a little, when he sadly writes of this being a “grudge fuck” election).

Chippie clearly knows he can’t boast about “saving 20,000 lives” or even talk about it much. Winston certainly knows that too, meaning that he can attack what was done. National and ACT could also have done this – and still could. Sure, they’ll be rightly held to account for largely going along at the time, but they can always point to the simple fact that they weren’t in charge. Forgiveness for the powerless and all that.

Second, Luxon playing footsie with Winston

First ignoring him as he rose in the polls, then allowing that National might have to phone him on election night, then turning around and trying to talk of how unstable having Winston in government could be.

This flip-flopping is far worse than English’s mistake in 2017 when he should have dealt to the bastard from the start about his bullshit “Vote for me to give National a spine”. That too allowed Winston to get back in the game.

What was needed then and now was what John Key did in 2008: calmly and almost off-handedly say that Winston can’t be trusted. Key didn’t make a big deal out of it, since that would be more publicity that helps Winston, but just a quiet, solid message repeated whenever he was questioned about it.

Sure, there are elements to WInston that National and ACT could not have controlled. The MSM have always loved talking him up because he’s “colour” and good copy (like the US MSM with Trump: a love/hate relationship), and their massive Leftish bent means that they realise that pushing Winston means stuffing ACT.

Just recently I became aware of a long-time friend of ours, a previously solid Labour voter, who is apparently considering voting for Winston purely for this reason. If Labour can’t win then NZ First is the next best thing to stop any rightward change in NZ’s economic and social direction. I wonder how many other Labourites are taking that approach?

Then there are the Labour people who are genuinely pissed off with Labour over Maori issues, free speech and such, or who feel they’ve just been useless in making workers better off, who cannot bring themselves to vote for National, let alone ACT.

It all adds up to WInston hitting 6-7% in the polls and perhaps in the election this Saturday.

Hence that slight whiff of flop sweat that has brought Key back into the limelight.

I guess the one consolation (and yet another tell against Bomber’s C-19 boasting fantasy) is that Labour dare not try the same thing with Ardern. They know how loathed she now is because of the Chinese Lung Rot responses, even if fanatics like Bomber don’t.