Mike Hosking: National leader Simon Bridges is not a rock star, but he's hardly a shambles either

COMMENT: Is it really a year since I felt sorry for Simon Bridges?

Second time out, same deal come the party conference, what to do with Simon? His only way to sort this forever is to win the election. If he did that, he could spend six, solid months going round saying "told you so, told you so". He would have the political capital of Scott Morrison, and for three years he'd be untouchable.

But then that's the whole problem, isn't it? Can he win an election?

What I think we all agree on is his leadership has not set anyone, or anything, alight. It is possible you can be an OK leader and still win an election. The same way, you could argue as likeable and connectable as Jacinda Ardern is, her Government has a lot of ineptness about it.

And we don't vote for leaders, we vote for policy, ideas, and outcomes. A good leader helps, the same way a bad leader doesn't.

But no one ever saw Scott Morrison in the same light as they saw Bob Hawke, or indeed John Howard, who was as dry as toast, but a monumental success story.

We can also forgive Bridges the cold hard reality that being opposition leader sucks - getting traction and headlines is hard, and he's up against a first-term Government with a game-changing leader.

But if you want a good insight in to how realistic his chances of winning are, read Peter Dunne's article that's floating around the net. Dunne makes a very plausible case for a National victory, which if you accept his logic, gives rise to the view that you don't roll Bridges.

Especially, when he isn't a disaster. No, not a rock star, but hardly a shambles.

But I would have thought the old logic applies: short of an obvious catastrophe, you don't roll leaders.

Theresa May was out of time and ideas, it made sense. in Australia Malcolm Turnbull was flaky, too liberal, and obsessed with climate change in a party that wasn't. Labour's Andrew Little had his party at 24 per cent, what happened next made sense.

Bridges having a tough time against a new Government isn't a crisis.

What he could do, and for the life of me I can't work out why he hasn't, is cut Winston Peters out of the equation. Rule New Zealand First out, and in doing that you take away his kingmaker status, and I would guess potentially suck up a point or two of support which would almost certainly put him below the five per cent threshold.

To entertain Peters as an option is to put yourself at the mercy of the same bloke two elections in a row, knowing what happened last time.

Only an idiot makes the same mistake twice. And glass half-full, it's only the middle of the year, we are still well over a year away from the next election.

In many respects, if they keep their powder dry, watch the economy continue to slow, the mistakes of the Government continue to grow, there is plenty of material to work with in 2020 when the vast majority of the populous will be actually paying attention for the first time since 2017.