Nats buoy Brash after a bad week

National mps have rallied around leader Don Brash and moved to quell speculation about his future as a new poll shows the party virtually neck-and-neck with Labour.

Last night's 3 News-TNS poll - which had Labour on 42 per cent and National on 41 - was welcome news for National in a week when Dr Brash's performance was under scrutiny.

On Tuesday he flubbed what should have been a simple press conference to combat allegations made by Winston Peters about American involvement in the party's election campaign.

Three days later, suggestions arose that National's former leader, Bill English, could have the support to take back the top job - although Mr English strongly denied this.

Dr Brash picked up three points in the preferred Prime Minister rankings in the poll, but on 18 per cent was still well below Helen Clark, who dropped four points to 34 per cent.

Deputy leader Gerry Brownlee yesterday spoke out strongly in support of Dr Brash, saying: "The caucus is fully behind him."

But the party leadership also conceded handling errors were made earlier in the week, first at the disastrous press conference and then at an unfortunate photo opportunity on Wednesday when Dr Brash walked across a thin wooden plank.

Speaking on TV One's Agenda programme yesterday, Dr Brash agreed the widely-reproduced plank photo was bad publicity.

"I don't normally blame my staff at all but that was a mistake which we collectively made," he said.

"I should never have been in a photo walking a 20-foot long plank, 10 inches wide, across water with the boat going up and down."

National's research director, Phil de Joux, has been appointed as deputy to chief of staff Wayne Eagleson, to help reduce his administrative workload.

Mr Eagleson acknowledged there were problems with last week's performance but said steps were being taken to fix that.

"We've got all the pieces of the jigsaw but we've got to make sure that they work together as effectively as they can."

Mr Brownlee said: "If there's been any slippage it's been in the support mechanisms around Don and that's something that we're taking care of very quickly."

The deputy leader also shrugged off suggestions that mistakes made at Tuesday's press conference issue had exposed Dr Brash's lack of political nous, instead playing up the leader's image as someone untarnished by the dirty side of Parliament.

"If people want to criticise Don Brash for his very honest approach to this, they've got to ask themselves what would be so bad about having a Prime Minister who's honest?

"It would be a refreshing change in my view."

Senior and junior National MPs spoken to by the Herald on Sunday yesterday all backed Dr Brash, and attributed the speculation about the leadership to a Beehive spin campaign to distract attention from the Telecom leak.

Caucus sources said there were no signs of anyone "doing the numbers" for a coup to topple Dr Brash.