In only three years the former chief executive of Air New Zealand has taken the Nationals from their second-worst ever performance to more than 40 per cent of the vote.
Winston Peters is a vision of what Nigel Farage might have achieved if the United Kingdom had a different electoral system. Paradoxically, the usual beneficiary is Labour.
Notwithstanding the recent poll showing of New Zealand First, the country’s coming election is still Key’s to lose.
It has been dispatched by one man – New Zealand First’s party leader, Winston Peters, who has Labour’s inexperienced leader in his pocket.