Brian Rudman: Right fix for Bill the rebuilder

This was the week Bill English was supposed to discard his Clark Kent glasses, don his super-politician cape and, via our television screens, make a race of it.

But something went very wrong. The National Party leader never managed to get lift-off out of Smallville, Southland.

Perhaps Kim Hill slipped a sliver of kryptonite into his water. Whatever. Instead of soaring like a bird, Mr English was hardly in his seat for the crucial one-on-one debate with TV One's star interviewer when he as good as admitted defeat. This, more than a week before election day.

Worst of all, it was his own work. All Ms Hill had said, by way of an opening gambit, was: "Do you remember when the National Party used to be the natural party of government?"

A more savvy politician would have quipped, "and it still is", smiled, and quickly moved on.

Instead, Mr English lingered. He did remember those halcyon days and, what's more, "It will be again ... because I'm going to spend the next 10 years rebuilding National as the dominant force in New Zealand politics and I'm going to get a good result on election day and that's going to be a big step forward".

Well, goodnight nurse.

Ms Hill could hardly believe her luck. "That sounds like a concession of defeat. It doesn't take you 10 years to build a party that's ready to be a government next Saturday," she said.

Mr English tried to argue his way out of his own goal, but how could he?

Earlier, Labour leader Helen Clark had talked about the rebuilding of the Labour Party that she'd undertaken after their 1990 defeat. She described how Labour had dragged itself to its present ascendancy by listening to people and, just for good measure, she apologised for the aberrations of the Lange-Douglas Government.

It was warm and fuzzy and, by being at the right end of rebuilding, she could make it a virtue.

Mr English, though, was still pouring the foundations for his rebuild. Rebuilding was to dog the National leader into the Paul Holmes leadership debate a few days later with Ms Clark heckling: "There's no way that anyone's going to vote for a party that needs rebuilding when there's a going concern in government now."

It also sparked a classic Holmes one-liner, the interviewer cheekily suggesting to Mr English that if the rebuilding was to take 10 years, National's new economic guru, former Reserve Bank governor Don Brash, "will be delivering his first Budget in a walker".

This column has been written before last night's TV3 leaders debate, but on the basis of the first two, Mr English's television image remains that of the head prefect, not headmaster.

Obviously told to toughen up for the Holmes encounter with Ms Clark, he hasn't quite got the hang of the difference between authoritative and strident. There were touches of anger and frustration as well. Which is not a good look. And with the stridency came strangulated vowels.

I don't think I ever want to here about "owww children or owww people or owww roads" again.

As for cliches, he is a master. Even Hill couldn't suppress a guffaw when Mr English, asked how he would improve the economy, began "It's a long hard road and there are no silver bullets ... "

A few minutes earlier, in the filmed introduction to the Hill debate, a Swanny-wearing shopper had been caught up in an English campaign walkabout. "Owzz it going?" he asked the passing politician.

Mr English gave an exasperated grimace and said, "Well, she's a long hard road for me".

That's one political statement most viewers would agree with.

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