Key on date, GG and losing

If there is a handbook of things PMs are not meant to talk about, then on page one would be “what if you lose”, followed by “the election date” and “the next GG”.

In this interview with the NZ Herald, John Key talks pretty openly about all three. First he states, that if he loses the election, he’ll quit politics.

This is not a big surprise. Key is not one of those politicians so desperate for the top job that he’ll spend 30 years going in and out of opposition.

What is a surprise is that Key will state this so bluntly. Normally PMs will avoid the question (like Clark did) and just do the normal “I am 100% focused on winning”.

Secondly the PM all but confirmed the election date for late November. Again this is no surprise in terms of preferred date, but it is unususal to give away the tactical advantage of knowing. Many Labour MPs spend much of their time speculating on election dates and were convinced Key would go before the Rugby World Cup.

I never thought Key would go early – to do so, would be like a public declaration that he thought the All Blacks would lose.

The third part of the story is Key revealing that he mentioned one of his early candidates for Governor-General to a colleague, and the response was that the person was “obnoxious and untrustworthy”.

This will lead to much speculation, as to the identity of the obnoxious and untrustworthy person. I doubt Key will ever name them – for obvious reasons. Still there can’t be that many people whom Key would have a good opinion of, and a colleague would deem obnoxious.