KEY POINTS:
The person or persons responsible for the covert recording of conversations of senior MPs at the National Party's pre-conference cocktail party may live to regret it.
That is not because their identity and political allegiance could yet come to light. Neither is it because they may belatedly suffer pangs of conscience for their low-life behaviour which will have a huge, lasting and very detrimental impact on the conduct of political discourse in this country.
They may regret their actions because the recordings and their broadcasting on TV3 will have an impact on National that they never contemplated.
Those behind the recordings may have dented National's prospects of winning the election - or, to be more exact, winning it by a large margin. But they have most assuredly doubled or tripled National's determination to win.
National is very angry. The party has been wounded - and badly. Of that, there is no question. It expects to take a hit in the polls. The recordings offer nothing of substance to buttress Labour's claim that National has a "hidden agenda".
However, the tapes of Bill English, Lockwood Smith and Nick Smith capture a mixture of cynicism and arrogance which will make some people seriously doubt the veracity and durability of John Key's assurances that National does not have a secret batch of right-wing policies to be implemented once the party is back in power.
National will know soon enough from its own private polling just how big a hit it has taken. Many people will wonder what all the fuss is about. Others will simply blame Labour for the dirty tricks. As a minimum, however, National can probably wave goodbye to securing a majority in its own right.
National is not only angry with the individual(s) who infiltrated its private function to such devastating effect. Labour is seen by its rival as behind the sabotage. Labour is the only party that has been digging for dirt on Key.
Rightly or wrongly, National is 100 per cent convinced Labour - more specifically Young Labour activists on Wellington campuses - is responsible.
That is why National is going to such lengths to find the culprits. National will be mightily embarrassed should those responsible have no ties with Labour. But that embarrassment will be tiny compared with that heaped on Labour if they do.
But the high-level denials from Michael Cullen and Labour's lampooning of John Key in Parliament over the alleged rifling of his electorate office's rubbish suggest Labour is confident it is not going to find itself red-faced.
National's anger is compounded by its deputy leader being forced to apologise to his leader. That Bill English had to do so was to some large degree his own fault.
The recordings had him seemingly questioning Key's understanding of Labour's Working for Families programme. When offered the chance to clarify things, he failed, his comments only undermining Key even further.
Some within National's ranks think English is a bit too loose expressing his opinions on others - and that bringing him down a peg or two is not without benefit.
However, that feeling has not diminished the party's fury over his entrapment and Labour's consequent use of the recordings to drive a wedge between him and Key in voters' minds.
Above all, National is angry with itself for being such a soft touch.
The reversal of fortune has literally stunned its MPs. They came out of a very successful conference primed to fight and win the crucial fiscal argument over Government debt.
They were instead ambushed within hours of the conference ending last Sunday and hostage to TV3's news bulletins over following nights.
But a wounded National Party is a very dangerous National Party. The clandestine recordings will galvanise the party. There will be no need for further warnings of complacency that party president Judy Kirk uttered at the conference - warnings which were anyway targeted more at voters to show National is not taking victory for granted.
Key had warned his MPs all year to expect things to get dirty. Even so, the covert recordings are said to have been a real eye-opener for the caucus as to the lengths National's enemies are willing to go.
National now knows it will have to be constantly on guard. It will harden up. It will take every precaution to ensure Key is protected and National's election campaign is not disrupted. The campaign will consequently be even more sanitised than previously; politician and public that much more distant.
The other impact of the bugging of the cocktail party has been to give National a timely reminder that, from now on, political management is not something that can be put on hold for an instant.
Having kept the ball in hand all weekend, National relaxed on Monday and promptly dropped it. English's reference on the recordings to Kiwibank being sold "eventually" was discussed by party strategists but left hanging, presumably to avoid giving the story more legs.
Interviewed later by TVNZ, English's deadpan response to questions about Key's understanding of Working for Families only succeeded in giving the story more legs.
That night's television coverage was so damaging that a hastily convened meeting of National's kitchen cabinet quickly decided that English had to apologise publicly to Key. Otherwise, Key would have looked weak.
The sight of English reading his apology while standing alongside his leader has had a levelling effect on their lopsided relationship, showing for all his experience, English is capable of mistakes.
Labour is cock-a-hoop. It has spent months trying to paint Key as vague and evasive about National's intentions in Government.
Key's colleagues have now done the job for it.
Key insists there is no secret agenda, his denials being so emphatic that his credibility will be mincemeat if things turn out otherwise.
Moreover, even if there is such an agenda, MMP and minority governments relying on small parties to prop them up are not vehicles for sweeping, unpopular reforms.
Key has done his utmost to kill the hidden agenda charge, pointing out he is guided by pragmatism and policies that work rather than ones based on ideology.
His promise that he will resign as Prime Minister if National tampers with state-funded superannuation entitlements and eligibility rules is intended to give similar reassurance about how National will handle other sensitive portfolios.
Thus it is with the 10 items in National's Blueprint for Change, which Key released last weekend. The blueprint is a way of saying a National-led Government would have enough to be getting on with without unnecessarily burdening itself with unpopular measures.
However, no matter what assurances Key gives, it is impossible for him to prove there isn't a secret agenda lurking somewhere.
It becomes even more difficult when his colleagues are caught talking frankly, though only vaguely and not very revealingly, about National's plans. Key's week was one step forward and about five steps back. But watch out Labour.
