Ruth Berry: 'Honest Don' stains image

A year ago today Don Brash was perched on the eve of an election which only narrowly failed to deliver him the prime ministerial job he so coveted.

It now seems almost certain that is the closest he will ever come to the job, as today he clings precariously to the National leadership.

Not because the undenied allegations of an extra-marital affair have become public, but because the party finds itself once again red-faced and centre-stage as a result of his actions at the very time it was beginning to look like a credible alternative government and its opponent seriously wounded.

Laying blame at Labour's door for its pistols-at-dawn approach doesn't alter that fact.

Settling points of honour in regard to the behaviour of the latter - which has fled the scene - will be done by the voters, but in the meantime Brash suddenly finds himself a lone duellist in yet another public spectacle.

And vulnerable to any number of anonymous assassins who might yet emerge from the shadows of his personal life or his caucus.

Not to mention, if the rumours are to be believed, the emails he himself typed.

Despite his determination to remain leader, a significant number of National MPs are refusing to give assurances about his future and are markedly circumspect.

They openly admit to testing the waters.

To concede this is a departure from past practice, particularly significant as it involves many senior MPs.

There are some pragmatic reasons for this, which Brash himself might not dispute.

National for example can't ultimately control the reactions of spurned partners, current or ex, or other aggrieved parties or those seeking, as Rakaia MP Brian Connell did, to exploit such an situation. Or the release of emails. In these areas it is still early days.

And will the issue - especially if more details emerge - alienate conservative and those women voters whom National is desperate to attract, regardless of their view on whether it should have become public?

But underlying the reticence is also MPs' mounting exasperation with accident-prone Brash himself.

He was equivocal about retaining the leadership after the last election because he feared his colleagues wanted him out.

They didn't - with those that did, believing the timing was wrong - and he steadied himself and once again set his sights on the prize.

Having set his course, Brash was not to be deterred.

The subsequent series of missteps, so neatly epitomised by the walking the plank episode, regularly raised caucus temperatures and renewed media speculation about his longevity.

What continued to rankle in National's inner sanctum - essentially uncertain about his ability to lead to the party into an election win - was that on top of the errors themselves, he appeared blinkered to their import. In itself either a worrying recipe for repetition or a sign he placed his ambition above the party's welfare. Or both.

In recent months National's fortunes significantly improved.

Sensitive to criticism the leader's peripatetic regional programme had rendered him invisible, the visits were reduced to ensure he was in the House for at least two of the three sitting days.

The front bench began performing more impressively and cohesively, further buoyed as the full implications of the Ingram report and Labour's mismanagement of the issue began to bite.

Ditto on election spending.

And then this. In a sense the timing itself can not be blamed on Brash, although both the big parties have raised the stakes recently.

A malevolent rumour about Helen Clark's husband Peter Davis had for weeks infected the body politic, repeatedly flaring sub-surface.

When a television reporter with a camera put it to her Tuesday a week ago to get the firm rebuttals emanating from Clark's office on the record and out of her mouth, Labour determined National was driving it. The retaliatory attack was launched by Trevor Mallard in the House just hours later with sufficient reference to the "Foreman affair" to leave those already familiar with the rumours gasping.

It prompted a late night call from worried National trouble-shooter Murray McCully to Mallard, with assurances MPs in his party had nothing to do with promulgating the Davis rumours.

The media remained at bay until Connell challenged Brash about the affair at Tuesday's caucus after he sought to reassure them that despite marriage troubles, things were under control.

The blithe assurances galled a number of MPs, who interpreted it as another case of stubborn disregard of the impact of his actions on the party, which in the case of a probably lengthy affair can't be dismissed as political naivete.

An MP is entitled to a private life, but a conservative prime ministerial aspirant - trading on an honest Don or gentleman Don image - engaging in an extra-marital relationship was clearly courting trouble.

He said yesterday that he intended to remain leader "subject as always to the support of my colleagues".

It acknowledges their wavering support. It could be read as a challenge to endorse him wholeheartedly.

The problem of how to work around the potentially ugly deadlock between about four pretenders to the throne has to date helped protect Brash.

And National MPs still have nightmares about the last series of damaging and bloody leadership coups and there remains huge reluctance to allow another.

Many senior MPs have now privately firmed up their belief Brash's time is up, but would much prefer he initiated his resignation himself.

They are providing him space in the hope he will quietly move to do so, but fear his ambition, and the fact he has become inured to the critics, will prevent him.

If the status quo remains a drop in polls would certainly spur the caucus into action, as could any further damaging leaks. Otherwise it will involve a longer more complex process, but it now appears inevitable that it will happen.

Labour MPs have this week been gleefully replaying the pre-election Paul Holmes interview with Brash and wife Je Lan about their marriage.

They will tread carefully initially, but will brandish the "integrity" word at him with meaningful vigour.

Labour is in some senses ambivalent about his on-going leadership. It wants him to remain because it doubts he can lead National to victory. However it severely resents the big dollars he attracts from the hard right.

One party source said its strategists had recently resolved that, in light of the $800,000 debt the Auditor-General is likely to hang around Labour's neck, he had to be driven out.

One reason National will be counselling Brash to avoid any sudden moves is to prevent Labour claiming his scalp.