Audrey Young: Bill English tries some intermittent negativity on Labour

Bill English's speech to launch National's campaign was vintage English, part brilliant, part boring.

At one point he lulled himself into thinking he was back in the debating chamber instead of the cavernous Trusts stadium in Henderson.

"Mr Spea ..." he said, before catching himself from a complete pratfall.

Mr Speaker, David Carter, was part of the crowd at Henderson stadium which, at 3000, matched the numbers Jacinda Ardern's Labour's launch last weekend, although not the euphoria.

English had confirmation, as if he needed it, earlier on Sunday morning that Ardern's sudden elevation a month ago is doing more than just redistributing votes on the centre-left, among Labour, Greens and New Zealand First.

It is impacting on National - the only question is how heavily.

Q+As Colmar Brunton snap poll in the Whangarei electorate was more interesting for its Party Vote result than the fact it had National MP Shane Reti well ahead of New Zealand First candidate Shane Jones.

The poll showed that the gap between National and Labour on the Party Vote support has narrowed to only four points - much closer than the gap of 32.39 points in the 2014 election result, and of 24.22 in the 2011 election.

English is not following Ardern's "relentlessly positive" posture - he has decided to be intermittently negative and he lashed out at Labour's tax policies during his speech.

It went down well with the faithful, and it almost certainly signals a move to stronger attacks on Labour over the taxes it wont be precise about, particularly a capital gains tax, which may be introduced by Labour.

The other part of English's speech that fired up the audience was the social investment approach or, as he puts it, a move from servicing misery to reducing it, person by person.

When a child turns up to a hospital with bronchial problems, someone should be sent to the child's house to sort out any problems with curtains, insulation and heating.

He talked about the success in reducing the number of teenage parents on a benefit by 60 per cent and a cut in the number of kids living in benefit households.

Social investment is more of a personal mission for him than a plan, he admits.

It is an area that he has almost to himself and an area in which he shines brilliantly.