KEY POINTS:
What a delicious irony. Nicky Hager's book has turned out to be the best Christmas present for the National Party. Santa came down the chimney and left The Hollow Men in the caucus' pillowcase.
Don Brash resigned, and caucus came to its senses, realised this was the last chance for unity and appointed John Key leader and Bill English deputy.
And Gerry Brownlee has proved he can be the brightest bulb on the Christmas tree (contrary to assertions by the Act party). By stepping aside for English, he's earned a lifetime supply of brownie points.
Which doesn't mean Brownlee wasn't also acting in self-interest. If the deputy's job had been contested, he would have been beaten by English. Instead of losing, he's emerged as a winner.
Other revelations in Hager's book should act as salutary lessons for National. Don Brash allowed a multitude of busy-bodies to give him unsolicited advice. He should have told them to butt out, but he was pulled every which way by internal advisers - Peter Keenan, Bryan Sinclair, Murray McCully, Wayne Eagleson, Richard Long - and others outside the tent who, as Jane Clifton ably put it, felt they had ownership of the National Party without ever deigning to stand for office.
So the first thing Key should do is get rid of the advisers. Be his own man. Unto his own self be true. Brash was too anxious to please everyone. Possibly as a result of his upbringing (son of a vicar), he saw the good in all, even those with evil on their mind.
Spin doctors were also the undoing of Jenny Shipley. By the end of her prime minister-ship, loyal supporters were pleading, "Can we have our Jenny back?" Just how far Shipley had been made over was shown when she made her 1999 election night speech conceding defeat to Clarke. Sloughing off the layers of artifice wrapped around her by minders, Shipley spoke from the heart. It remains one of her best deliveries.
Hager has also reinforced the considerable talents of Bill English, not the least his astuteness in assessing his colleagues. Katherine Rich was absolutely not supported when dumped from the social welfare portfolio. As English pointed out in a leaked email to Brash, she had two small kids and a tough job. Promotion without support leads to disaster, and Rich never regained her confidence under the Brash leadership.
No wonder. Rich was accused in 2005 by Michael Bassett in his newspaper column of publicly bagging her leader, and torpedoing his speech. Not so, as was pointed out to Brash, suggesting he write a letter for publication, setting the record straight. Unfortunately, Brash said he'd approved the column prior to publication (something Bassett denies). Rich had no alternative but to swallow her pride and endure public canings for everything from rejecting compulsory adoption to having the audacity to wear purple lipstick.
Last week I promoted Rich for deputy, but you know the cliché about a week in politics, and now I think the Key/English combination is a good one for the party (which is not the same as being good for the country).
At the time of writing this, Rich was tipped for education. Key and English both know they need to get the female vote (which is totally turned off by talk of welfare reform), and National now has a promising line-up of women MPs to complement Rich - Georgina Te Heuheu, Sandra Goudie, Jackie Blue, Nicky Wagner and Kate Wilkinson, to name but a few.
And it's not just women who attract votes from women. Liberal MPs like Simon Power, David Carter, Chris Finlayson and Jonathan Coleman, also have appeal.
The National caucus is energised and excited, but it has a tough job ahead.
Though Labour's front bench is looking tired and old (which they are, compared with the average age of National's front bench), the contest has become almost visceral. Labour must win the next election at any cost.
That will mean Michael Cullen swallowing his fiscal prudence and spending the surplus between now and election 2008.
This will achieve two major coups - buy votes and get rid of $11 billion, thus gazumping Key's promise of tax cuts without spending cuts.
Meanwhile, Don Brash has quietly bowed out of politics. National owes Brash big time - he saved the party from oblivion and rescued its finances. But he's shown he's too nice for politics by constantly retaining his good humour in the face of relentless questioning from media. Helen Clark would have gone toxic long ago (remember the "little creep" explosion?), but Brash keeps on smiling and chuckling. There's no place for a former leader on the front bench, and I was delighted after Rodney Hide became the Act leader and Richard Prebble joined me - as Act's most disgraced MP after Donna Awatere-Huata - at the back. I never knew that question time could be so hilarious as when The Preb kept a running commentary in my ear.
But Brash didn't want to sit it out in the cheap seats, so he resigned.
Those commentators and nosy-parkers in think-tanks and lobby groups who contributed to his demise with their careless scattering of emails could think hard about offering him a job.
