Audrey Young: Last words of a disappointed man

"Set me free. And let me out [of] this misery."

The Walmsley family singers who opened Bill English's final campaign meeting in Hamilton yesterday warbled away to a cruelly fitting Anastacia hit.

The past four weeks have been tough, Mr English admitted, though he did not need to tell us that. Disappointment and frustration were written all over him.

He issued yet another plea for voters to forget the little parties.

"They say what they like because they can; because they never have to do it.

"'When Bob the Builder [New Zealand First leader Winston Peters] says he is going to fix it, he'll never have to.

"The party vote for the small party is a waste of time."

None of the things that "like-minded parties" wanted, such as tougher prison sentences, would happen without a strong National Party.

Mr English delivered his speech knowing that the last polls of the campaign give National little chance of recovering its respectability tomorrow - save for a late surge of sympathy voting.

But there can be only so much sympathy when National's problems are largely of its own making.

Having a new leader is not an excuse. It is an old party that has not used its experience.

Mr English says he has enjoyed the campaign. Clearly this has not been reciprocated. He has raised his profile and his experience, but he did not raise his authority.

He can take some comfort in the astonishing loss of support for Labour in four weeks.

But that is cancelled out by his failure to present National as a strong alternative.



The campaign seemed more focused on establishing empathy with the voter - families, small businesses and crime victims - as its way of differentiating with Labour, rather than on hammering home policy differences.

Empty slogans such as "we're ambitious for New Zealand," and "we back aspiration over envy" dominated some of his television appearances when he should have been straight-talking.

He was elected to replace Jenny Shipley, not imitate her.

He came up with a couple of new doozies yesterday: "The best way to predict the future is to make it happen," and "I'm proud of our potential".

In economic management, an area of difference where National was not competing with the likes of Act or New Zealand First, Mr English refused to properly use his strongest weapon, former Reserve Bank governor Don Brash.

It was more important for him to follow caucus niceties and keep David Carter as finance spokesman than pit the hugely credible Dr Brash against the formidable Dr Cullen.

That would have been a contest.

Instead we got a television ad showing Dr Brash rambling while making coffee - for empathy, no doubt.

National's ads have been hopeless.

The awful grainy art-house television advertisements promoting Bill the family man were replaced by equally awful and wooden "I believe ... I believe ... I believe ... " ads.

Mr English has not found the right voice for that crucial of all media, television.

When he relaxes he seems too soft, not hungry enough. When he gets tough, he is criticised for being too aggressive.

It took a lot of training for Helen Clark to make it look easy.

The omens were there from the start. National's campaign began badly at the North Shore Events Centre launch with lack of attention to basics. Never put out too many seats is Rule 1 of party conferences.

But inattention to basics has been a hallmark of the campaign.

Mr English has looked like an amateur next to Mr Peters and Act leader Richard Prebble because he has not had the back-up.

There have been no scandals, mini-scandals or even revelations to pull out from the bottom drawer during the campaign.

National picked up on newspaper research that inflation had eroded wage gains under Labour.

His party could have been churning out its own research every day.

Act does. It is a party that fights every second of every day for every whiff of a vote even if it is banging its head against a brick wall. It has attitude.

National has seemed complacent by comparison.

It is as though it believes that if it wants something badly enough, it will happen, or that voters would take notice during the campaign because it has been in government.

Some will say it was at least a valuable practice run for next time.

It hasn't. It has been a miserable practice run.

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