Homepaddock has an excellent post today giving her take on this week's beat-up story - that Bill English is planning a coup to unseat John Key.
Homepaddock makes no secret of her affiliation to the National Party. But she speaks from the heart today, and from her personal knowledge of Bill English. That "insider knowledge" adds far more value to the debate than the hyperbole and speculation that uninformed lefties such as Clinton "Steve Pierson" Smith from The Standard have tried to peddle this week. Phrases such as "The English tape has turned into a massive scandal" from Clinton are little more than the blogger's equivalent of a media beat-up - which I should confess I have probably been guilty of myself at some point!
I was impressed with English after he lost the National leadership to Don Brash. Instead of sniping from the sidelines he got his head down, and scored some huge hits on Labour in the education portfolio - notably over NCEA and Te Wananga o Aotearoa. His effectiveness in the House was such that he got Mark Burton displaced as Justice Minister over the EFA, and Annette King probably cringes when she sees a question on the EFA from English on the Order Paper - an almost daily occurrence.
So I will accept Homepaddock's word when she says unequivocably that English is not after Key's job, and that the National Party is as unified as she has ever known it. Southern women don't tell lies!
3 comments:
Well said IV2.
Bill English has done a fine job in recent years.
He has well redeemed himself from the disaster of 2002 under his leadership.
I am convinced that National does not want to go there again.
All talk of English rolling Key is just leftist hyperbole and party.
leftist hyperbole and fantasy
Since you fess up to the odd bit of hyperbole you're entitled to call The Standard out on that.
I posted this week that "The Standard has called this a “meltdown“, debacle, major scandal, and so on. It looks more like the sort of loose talk that you might get at a party conference where things are said that wouldn’t be said in public."
Leaving aside the OTT leadership bid speculation, the taped comments were interesting for the light shed on the state of relations within National's leadership. The prospect of sharing out the spoils of office will keep them together until election day, but should National lose, run for cover!
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