Judith Collins talks comments made by her former chief press secretary Janet Wilson. Video / Mark Mitchell
OPINION:
National's most valuable public service of late has been to put on a jolly decent show for us each time Covid-19 prevents international acts from coming.
Last season delivered the vaudeville-cum-Greek tragedy of Icarus Muller.
Now National appears to be on the verge of putting on another dramatic productionfor us.
We await to see which genre we will get, although the trailers indicate there will be elements of a splatter movie.
Every time she opens a cupboard, she won't know if a snake will be in it.
It is now all but inevitable the snake will eventually bite her and its name will be Simon Bridges.
The only question is when that will happen.
At the moment, MPs are reacting to one poll in particular: a 21 per cent result for them in the Taxpayers' Union Curia Poll taken almost two weeks ago and released this week.
At the time, Collins' leadership was under scrutiny after a string of missteps, and this column predicted Bridges would move on her by year's end.
MPs are due to return to Parliament on Tuesday, including Bridges. However, the Auckland MPs will not be among them, saving Collins from Bridges and possibly Bridges from himself.
Simon Bridges and Judith Collins in 2018. Photo / Mark Mitchell
Bridges' supporters are more impatient than Bridges himself and are pushing for a late October move.
Other National MPs are counselling against panic on the basis of lockdown-affected polls.
That happened in 2020 after the party fell almost instantaneously from the 40s to the high 20s and Bridges was blamed. In his book, Bridges called the MPs who rolled him "the bedwetters" for their panic.
The trouble is that this time around, it is not just one poll.
When your party has spent two years polling in the mid-20s and then manages to fall to its worst level since 2002, it is not panic: it is CPR.
However, the same poll that put National at 21 per cent has done little to identify a hero to administer the CPR.
Bridges was almost as unpopular as Judith Collins in the testing of public perception. The question is whether that is set in concrete.
Because of that, Bridges needs to maximise the relaunch to try to convince voters they have him wrong and he has moved on from bellowing from the sidelines.
Bridges cannot afford to stuff it up because it will be his last chance.
For that reason, it will not happen until at least after this current outbreak is dealt with.
Bridges' preference would likely be to wait until early next year after the vaccination roll-out (and the PM's wedding) is done, a time when he could focus on what National's vision for a vaccinated future might look like.
It would allow for a positive rather than a negative oppositional approach.
He would also want to be sure the vast majority of caucus agreed there was a need for a move - something that could take a few polls.
Bridges would probably be able to roll Collins tomorrow.
But his first battle is convincing the vast majority of caucus to back him. It is a project his backers have started on.
He will not have wasted his Delta time. By the time Bridges gets there he will have sorted out what his front bench should look like, how to mend bridges with the so-called "bedwetters" and what to say when he gets there.
Then will come the challenge of persuading the public.
At the moment, National is under attack from two quarters. Ardern has taken women and young voters, Act has taken rural voters. The first is particularly tricky.
Those most turned off from National are women; the Taxpayers' Union Curia poll showed only 16 per cent of women supported National, while 56 per cent favoured Labour.
National does have good women who may one day restore the party.
For now, part of the problem is not the women who are in the party, but those who have left it.
National's most influential women left during the 2020 show: Amy Adams, Nikki Kaye and Paula Bennett.
But the reason women have moved to Labour is not because of the personnel: it is because of high levels of concern about Covid-19 and the health and economic welfare of their families. They trusted Sir John Key with that in his time.
What every poll has shown indisputably and consistently is the vast majority of voters believe Ardern is the best person to contend with Covid-19.
Two further polls are likely to come in the next few weeks which may determine the timing once and for all: 1News' Kantar poll (formerly Colmar Brunton) and the Newshub Reid Research poll.
There remains the possibility of a plot twist.
Many column inches have been dedicated to when Bridges could move, but barely a thought has been given to the possibility Collins could force him into it at a time that didn't suit him by resigning.
That is partly because Collins is not renowned for being a quitter.
On the fight v flight spectrum of survival techniques, she is very decidedly on the fight side.
To steal from Glee's cheerleading coach Sue Sylvester: get ready for the ride of your life, you are aboard the National Party Express.
