The rehabilitation of Bill English

Bill English

Bill English is grinning. The whole time I'm in his office - a corner office, deep in the Nats' sanctum on the third level of Parliament Buildings - the education spokesman looks like the head boy at prizegiving.

Perhaps it's his promotion this week to No 3 in the National caucus, behind only leader Don Brash and deputy Gerry Brownlee and ahead of the star of National's election campaign, finance spokesman John Key.

Or perhaps it's the subtext of that promotion: the resurrection of Bill English.

The 43-year-old has only climbed one slot up the party rankings, but the move is significant.

After two years of hard work as education spokesman, the deposed leader - a one-time brat-packer now going grey around the temples - is again being touted as a contender for the party's top job.

He bats such speculation away coyly, but doesn't disguise his ambition: "The party and the country need different leadership at different times. It's a great job but it either comes or it doesn't."

It's a textbook non-denying denial, the acceptable political middle ground between naked ambition and ambivalence.

Some say that by ranking English third and rising star Key fourth, Brash is heeding Sun Tzu's strategic dictum: keep your friends close but your enemies closer.

"It probably is a sort of counterweight to the John Key leadership aspirations," says Auckland University political scientist Dr Raymond Miller. "Having Bill English there as another potential contender means that it's not a fait accompli when Don Brash eventually is challenged or chooses to go."

But the Clutha-Southland MP laughs off such suggestions: "I'm ranked high because of my experience and I've demonstrated a commitment to the team by being an ex-leader who's re-committed to it. In John's case he's a very capable finance spokesman and should be senior."

Indeed, first elected in 1990, English has more Cabinet-level experience than any Nat except Lockwood Smith and Murray McCully. And he's justified in citing his own dedication to the team.

"There's been no evidence, certainly publicly, of sour grapes," says Miller. "He took the leadership defeat extremely well."

Many politicians would have thrown in the towel after a coup like English experienced in 2003 - by the standards of National's traditionally smooth leadership transitions, an unusually public and bloody mess.

As Miller points out, there is no precedent in our parliament of a deposed party leader reclaiming the title.

But English says he didn't contemplate returning to his previous careers as a house husband, a farmer and a Treasury policy analyst.

"I wanted to make use of the experience I've built up because it's been hard-won. I've been through big election victories, terrible election losses, I've seen leadership changes, I've seen very good policy, very bad policy. And I'm young enough to be able to put that experience to use rather than throw it away."

And anyway, what sort of example would that have set for the kids? He is aware he must abide by the advice he dispenses to his six children, aged 6 to 17.

Don't wallow in defeat, just get up and get stuck in again, he says sincerely. Besides, "political power comes and goes easily. It can be easily lost and too easily won."

Consider David Lange: "He had a fairly brief period in which it was satisfying and effective for him. And then it all crumbled. Lange may have been better if it had taken him longer to get there."

Echoes, perhaps, of his own tenure as leader? Was he too green when he rolled Jenny Shipley in 2001?

"I've got no regrets about it. When you're in your late 30s there's a lot of things you don't know. But I can tell you being the leader is a great way to learn them."

The question is whether that disastrous period, when English led National to its worst-ever defeat, has left him electorally tarred.

"At the time I said, 'I'm responsible'. Others will decide whether that tarred me or not. It happened, there were reasons for it, and it's on the history books."

Miller believes English has been rehabilitated, but says the jury is still out on his media performance. "He had image problems in 2002 and he was probably poorly advised. Getting involved in a boxing competition, for instance, where he got fairly badly bloodied, wasn't probably the sort of thing an aspiring prime minister should be involved in."

But there was still a core of MPs who had remained loyal to him: "Questions would still remain about whether he has what it takes to get the top job back again ... It would be a big ask and certainly I would think that John Key would probably have the inside running, but he could face some stiff competition from Bill English."

For English, such a prospect would have to inspire serious soul-searching. How could Brash, hardly a mighty demagogue, catch the public's imagination with tax cuts and one standard of citizenship when English failed with much the same rhetoric?

"I just think when I was saying it, no one was listening," English says.

"He [Brash] came in untarnished by the past and with the kind of clarity you get when you haven't been involved in politics. And enough credibility as a public figure."

But with Brash due to turn 68 around the time of the 2008 election, expectations are mounting that National will undergo another leadership change in the next 18 months. English can afford to bide his time.

"The advantage I have is that I'm comparatively young, but I've got a lot of experience. I'm not threatened with turning ... " he starts, before checking himself.

"I'm not threatened with time running out."

- HERALD ON SUNDAY