Key’s trip cancelled

Media were told this morning that the PM’s trip to Europe to meet David Cameron and Nicolas Sarkozy has been cancelled.

It would have been a tough call. A huge amount of planning would have gone into the trip, and it is not the sort of thing you can just reschedule for a month down the road.

But I think the right call. If the trip was scheduled even a week later, then one might have been able to do it. But going overseas within a week of the earthquake would have led (unfairly) to a perception that the earthquake is less important.