Bay of Plenty Times
  • Bay of Plenty Times home
  • Latest news
  • Business
  • Opinion
  • Lifestyle
  • Property
  • Sport
  • Video
  • Death notices
  • Classifieds

Subscriptions

  • Herald Premium
  • Viva Premium
  • The Listener
  • BusinessDesk

Sections

  • Latest news
  • On The Up
  • Business
  • Opinion
  • Lifestyle
  • Property
    • All Property
    • Residential property listings
  • Rural
    • All Rural
    • Dairy farming
    • Sheep & beef farming
    • Horticulture
    • Animal health
    • Rural business
    • Rural life
    • Rural technology
  • Sport

Locations

  • Coromandel & Hauraki
  • Katikati
  • Tauranga
  • Mount Maunganui
  • Pāpāmoa
  • Te Puke
  • Whakatāne
  • Rotorua

Media

  • Video
  • Photo galleries
  • Today's Paper - E-Editions
  • Photo sales
  • Classifieds

Weather

  • Thames
  • Tauranga
  • Whakatāne
  • Rotorua

NZME Network

  • Advertise with NZME
  • OneRoof
  • Driven Car Guide
  • BusinessDesk
  • Newstalk ZB
  • What the Actual
  • Sunlive
  • ZM
  • The Hits
  • Coast
  • Radio Hauraki
  • The Alternative Commentary Collective
  • Gold
  • Flava
  • iHeart Radio
  • Hokonui
  • Radio Wanaka
  • iHeartCountry New Zealand
  • Restaurant Hub
  • NZME Events

SubscribeSign In
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Home / Bay of Plenty Times

Opinion: Big hurdles for English

Bay of Plenty Times
13 Dec, 2016 06:00 AM4 mins to read

Subscribe to listen

Access to Herald Premium articles require a Premium subscription. Subscribe now to listen.
Already a subscriber?  Sign in here

Listening to articles is free for open-access content—explore other articles or learn more about text-to-speech.
‌
Save

    Share this article

The country's new prime minister, Bill English. Photo/File

The country's new prime minister, Bill English. Photo/File

The emergence of Bill English as National party leader and, therefore as Prime Minister, was in some ways almost a non-event. It did produce an important and clear-cut outcome, but the contest was over before it began.

From the moment that Bill English was endorsed by John Key, it would have been a major surprise if he had not prevailed. The absence of any real sense of contest was compounded by the surprising thinness of the field that he had to overcome.

Challenges from Judith Collins and Jonathan Coleman were never going to have him quaking in his shoes; and hardly spoke volumes for the talent allegedly to be found on National's front bench.

Judith Collins had really no claim to be considered, having surely disqualified herself from high office by her unsavoury connections with dirty politics and Cameron Slater, and her inability to separate her ministerial responsibilities from her husband's business interests in China.

Jonathan Coleman has proved himself a decently competent Minister, but his problem in pitching himself as the party leader can be seen from the fact that the only time he has hit the headlines concerned a fight he got into at a function hosted by British-American Tobacco, when he blew cigar smoke into the face of another guest, and refused to desist.

So, the hot favourite won going away. That, however, was the easy bit. English now has to jump higher hurdles, including winning a general election and that is a hurdle he has fallen at in the past.

He can fairly claim to be the architect of much of National's policy platform, but selling it to the public is now his responsibility and can no longer be contracted out to his predecessor, who, unlike him, had the advantage of being a born salesman.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

There is an eerily close parallel between his predicament and that of the former UK politician, Gordon Brown.

Brown was handed the premiership, after a long wait, when Tony Blair, who is variously reckoned to have been either a brilliantly persuasive communicator or a ham actor and con man, was persuaded to remove himself from the scene.

Brown was a dour Scot, not given to levity and small talk.

The contrast with Blair was all too apparent. His advisers told him that he must smile more. With the result that often, in the middle of a television interview on some humourless topic, he would suddenly remember to smile and, at the most inopportune moment, break into a kind of rictus, baring his teeth in an alarming way and appearing almost manic.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

English is not similarly afflicted, but he does not have Key's easy manner, and, when he remembers to smile, he can often look as though he is enjoying a private joke at the expense of his interlocutors, perhaps because he knows he is cleverer than they are and knows things they don't.

But his problems are not just presentational. He, more than anyone else, has been associated with, and has claimed the credit for, giving priority to the deficit. Not the country's deficit (the one that really matters) but the government's.

Cutting the deficit matters, especially to policy wonks, but a price has been paid for the cuts, particularly by ordinary people who have found that their housing, health, education and living standards have suffered while the government has pocketed money that could have been spent on them.

And he is still at it. As we speak, he has authorised a further sale of state houses in Christchurch to absentee landlords in Australia. More money for the government's coffers, but a further loss of government-provided housing for the badly housed and homeless.

It was one thing to be hard-nosed as Minister of Finance, but quite another to be a hard-nosed prime minister.

The combination of a smiling front man and a tough number two served the last government well, but English and Joyce, two hard-nosed money men who focus more on figures than people, may not work as well.

That leaves the Deputy's position. The call from the rival candidates, Paula Bennett and Simon Bridges, was for change and refreshment; a call that could be echoed to advantage by Andrew Little come election time.

Save

    Share this article

Latest from Bay of Plenty Times

Bay of Plenty Times

'We've had enough': Red Square protest opposes pay equity changes

09 May 07:21 AM
Bay of Plenty Times

On The Up: 'A powerhouse' - Looking back at 40 years of Bayfair

09 May 05:00 AM
Bay of Plenty Times

New $28m sport centre opens in Tauranga with family fun day

09 May 04:03 AM

One tiny baby’s fight to survive

sponsored
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

Latest from Bay of Plenty Times

'We've had enough': Red Square protest opposes pay equity changes

'We've had enough': Red Square protest opposes pay equity changes

09 May 07:21 AM

Opponents say the changes will make it harder to successfully bring pay equity claims.

On The Up: 'A powerhouse' - Looking back at 40 years of Bayfair

On The Up: 'A powerhouse' - Looking back at 40 years of Bayfair

09 May 05:00 AM
New $28m sport centre opens in Tauranga with family fun day

New $28m sport centre opens in Tauranga with family fun day

09 May 04:03 AM
Preschoolers thrive with free meals in Gate Pā

Preschoolers thrive with free meals in Gate Pā

09 May 02:07 AM
Connected workers are safer workers 
sponsored

Connected workers are safer workers 

NZ Herald
  • About NZ Herald
  • Meet the journalists
  • Newsletters
  • Classifieds
  • Help & support
  • Contact us
  • House rules
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of use
  • Competition terms & conditions
  • Our use of AI
Subscriber Services
  • Bay of Plenty Times e-edition
  • Manage your print subscription
  • Manage your digital subscription
  • Subscribe to Herald Premium
  • Subscribe to the Bay of Plenty Times
  • Gift a subscription
  • Subscriber FAQs
  • Subscription terms & conditions
  • Promotions and subscriber benefits
NZME Network
  • Bay of Plenty Times
  • The New Zealand Herald
  • The Northland Age
  • The Northern Advocate
  • Waikato Herald
  • Rotorua Daily Post
  • Hawke's Bay Today
  • Whanganui Chronicle
  • Viva
  • NZ Listener
  • What the Actual
  • Newstalk ZB
  • BusinessDesk
  • OneRoof
  • Driven CarGuide
  • iHeart Radio
  • Restaurant Hub
NZME
  • About NZME
  • NZME careers
  • Advertise with NZME
  • Digital self-service advertising
  • Book your classified ad
  • Photo sales
  • NZME Events
  • © Copyright 2025 NZME Publishing Limited
TOP