I didn't think it was going to happen this fast, but I knew it was going to happen. After I got off the radio last night at 7 o'clock, it ramped up, Thomas Coughlan wrote a piece late in the evening for the Herald confirming that National MPs were again phoning each other about his leadership.
That, by the way, for people who've already asked me if I'm happy with the situation is not a media creation, get off that bandwagon. It is not the media creating the situation. The media are not forcing the MPs to try to roll him.
This is the MPs trying to roll him in the media. They are telling you what is happening. Thomas Coughlan wasn't creating the situation - he was merely reporting on what was going on.
Other media who were behind Thomas on this, then started phoning around, found out that Thomas was right and started reporting on the situation as well.
The level of reporting became quite overwhelming today. As a result, the Prime Minister could no longer ignore what was now out in the open, and he called a caucus meeting, which will happen tomorrow at 9:30 in Wellington. MPs have already started landing in Wellington for that meeting.
I think you would be a fool right now to say which way it is going to go tomorrow because there are about 17.5 hours between now and 9:30 tomorrow morning.
There are multiple MPs who consider themselves to be in the running for leadership and those MPs will be using every one of those hours within reason to try to get the numbers for them.
There will be horse trading between now and 9:30 tomorrow. There will be promises of jobs. Loyalties will shift.
But what I would say is that it is going to be very hard for Chris Luxon to survive this. Because how do you survive two of these in less than 4 months?
If, against all the odds, he manages to survive, does he have any authority left after that? I also think he is very close to losing the numbers if he hasn't already.
I have counted by myself 3 loyal Luxon MPs who have left him. Two of them have joined Erica Stanford's camp. One of them has joined Chris Bishop's camp.
If you've been following this over the last week, you will know that he only had a margin of 3 MPs in the rumored 27 to 22 vote in April.
He has lost by my, my count, those 3 MPs, and those are just the ones I know about. He has possibly lost more than that.
As I say, I think you would be a fool to say with certainty one way or the other that Chris Luxon will or will not be rolled tomorrow, but I don't like his chances.
I don't think this is looking good for him at all.
Heather du Plessis-Allan is a journalist and radio broadcaster who hosts Newstalk ZB's weekday Drive-Time Show – where this article was sourced.
1 comment:
Getting in bed with the monopolists during a cost of living crisis was always going to break the National Party. Fear of retribution stopped many newspapers running with my articles on this subject. Sourcing one's economic advice from born again libertarians when decent practical plans that put people first were shunned was always going to create chaos. Willis is to blame for these mistakes way more than Luxon but why did he choose such a weak team? We knew two years ago there were no credible economic strategists in the Beehive nor Treasury. I tried a bailout, not to help them but for NZ, but they were so arrogant and blind to public anger. Luxon & Willis never met with any of our ten highest ranked world class economists - they had their own favoured in house ones who are either Wellington based relics from the 1980-90s or just out of school.
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