Armstrong on Key

John Armstrong writes in the Herald:

To watch John Key have Parliament eating out of his hand is to catch glimpses of Helen Clark in her heyday and, dare one say it, even David Lange in his. Just glimpses, mind you.

He’s not shy of using sarcasm, though it has less impact than Clark’s acid rain.

He falls well short of replicating what was her brooding and intimidating authority. While he has learned much from observing Clark, her style is not really his.

Still, there is good reason for placing him alongside such exalted company.

During one question time this month, Phil Goff asked Key what responsibility he took as Prime Minister for the forecast deficit ballooning out from the original estimate of $2.4 billion to a whopping $16 billion.

For once, Key’s guard dropped. The House got some rare, undiluted passion from the prime minister.

Yes, he took full responsibility. He took full responsibility for helping the people of Christchurch.

He took full responsibility for preserving social programmes that helped people get through the economic recession.

And he took full responsibility for keeping unemployment low, unlike in other countries hit by the global downturn.

What was apparent was that Key had instantly and effortlessly shifted up a gear – one rarely witnessed in public and which left Goff trailing like flotsam in his wake.

Labour should be afraid, very afraid. Behind Key’s affable facade lurks a politician as utterly single-minded, focused and merciless as Clark was and Lange wasn’t.

While many in Labour still seem to think he is some fluffy smile and wave lightweight. And then they wonder where all the flotsam came from.