KEY POINTS:
If the Labour Party believes its own propaganda and seriously thinks John Key is all flashy style but no real substance then it should look in the mirror.
Key's ruthless dumping of Gerry Brownlee as his would-be deputy and equally merciless easing of Don Brash out of Parliament altogether smacks of a style not that far removed from the Prime Minister's own modus operandi.
Key's brutal disregard of Brash's admittedly unreal expectations of a decent job in his new line-up would score highly on any Helen Clark measure of realpolitik.
Just as Phillip Field found that Clark had imperceptibly shifted from supporting him to wanting to sack him, so Brash watched National's new leader narrow his career options down to just one - "thanks for all you've done, but goodbye". Little wonder Key was dubbed the "Smiling Assassin" when laying-off staff during his merchant banking days.
"Hurricane Key" may be more appropriate, however. Key's first week in the job has seen a Communist Party-like purge in which much of what Brash put in place departed with him.
Key's decisiveness in part reflects a managerial ethic that new chief executives make a real impact in their first 100 days.
However, enjoying both the strong mandate from being elected unopposed and the traditional honeymoon accorded a new leader of the Opposition means Key's power is at its zenith.
Whether it be the eradication of Brash's "political correctness eradicator", the symbolic reinstatement of the shadow Women's Affairs portfolio or unilaterally determining that the anti-nuclear law will remain intact while he is leader, Key is flexing that power big time.
Years of dithering over National's stance on nuclear ship visits have been blown away in an instant. While the few hawks in National's caucus might grumble, Labour will no longer be able to exploit the ambiguity and confusion surrounding National's previous stance.
That is the yardstick for Key. However, dismantling some elements of the Brash legacy requires more subtlety.
So Key has borrowed another Clark stratagem - shift position in small steps rather than in one giant leap.
This week he talked of changes in tone and emphasis, rather than substantive shifts in policies. But his first speech as leader is an indication those shifts are coming.
This is most obvious in the softening of National's Maori policy. While continuing to emphasise Brash's dictum of one standard of citizenship, Key acknowledged Maori are the tangata whenua of New Zealand.
Only a month ago, Brash was questioning whether Maori were a distinct indigenous group at all.
In a further concession to the Maori Party, Key is talking about reviewing the timetable for National's promised abolition of the Maori seats. That sounds like the promise is now very much on the backburner.
All up, Key's speech on Tuesday was a major distancing from the Brash era across a range of fronts without being absolutely explicit about it.
Thus, the statement that "families come in many shapes and sizes" was a backhanded slap at Brash's attempt to paint National as "mainstream", a ploy which succeeded only in alienating gays and other minorities.
There were further digs at Brash with Key's assurances that "there will always be a social welfare system" and that he does not intend "to blindly follow an ideological path" without first considering whether it will work in New Zealand.
The distancing is the first stage of Key's well-publicised plan to make National appear more centrist.
He recognises the obvious: that most voters are clustered around the middle ground of politics. National needs to take votes off Labour, but Clark long ago crossed the centre divide and captured issues off National, thus going a long way towards making Labour the natural party of government.
Key intends doing to Clark what she has done to National: grow the centre-right vote by not only pushing hard up against Labour but overlapping it on some issues.
There is no secret about where this strategy has come from. Key has been a close observer of Britain's Conservatives and attended that party's annual conference two months ago.
David Cameron, the Conservatives' bright young leader, has put the frighteners on Tony Blair's NewLabour by claiming ground not usually associated with the Conservatives: the environment, poverty and public health.
Key has already flagged environmental policy as one area which should not be the preserve of the left.
Education is likely to be another. Bill English has long had a potent message for parents about declining standards. But that got lost at the last election in an ideological argument about parental choice in schooling.
The obvious risk is that a more moderate National becomes a "me too" copy of Labour. Meanwhile, voters attracted to National by Brash's strong branding of the party on race, welfare and law and order start drifting away.
Key's solution is to set aside several as-yet-unspecified issues where he will provoke a scrap with Labour from a firm right-of-centre standpoint.
He also intends to stop talking about the economy - he will leave that to English - and start focusing on areas where voters are confused or unclear about what National stands for.
Whether this strategy works will in part hinge on whether voters believe Key is genuinely more centrist than Brash - or is just expediently trying to appear to be so.
Unlike Brash, Key has not left a paper trail which divulges his personal ideological beliefs in sharp relief. When quizzed about his beliefs, Key has tended to take cover by talking about what National believes.
His "values" speech this week does not really answer the question of whether he is a New Right wolf in sheep's clothing (to borrow the phraseology the Economist magazine this week applied to Cameron).
A fair chunk of middle ground voters simply make the assumption that Key's wealth and a right-wing agenda go hand in hand. They will take a lot of convincing that when he says "centrist" he really means it.
However, the absence of any embarrassing New Right baggage will make it extremely difficult for Labour to convince those yet to make up their minds about Key that they should not trust him.
Brash was a sitting duck for Labour. Getting Key in its sights is going to be a lot harder.
