Simon Bridges is the walking dead. His performances are getting so bad he is making Joe Biden appear cogent.
Take this train wreck of an interview with Susie Ferguson at Radio NZ:
The pause at the end was large enough to drive a road train through. His whiny and cringy demeanour is unbecoming and it shows he is not in command of even himself.
Newshub was running an online survey that isn’t a good showing for Simon Bridges:
When someone is polling lower than Paula Bennett they might as well pack their bag and drive back to Tauranga with their tail between their legs.
Bridges won’t be able to hold this coup off now, especially if a public poll delivers bad news for National.
The problem Bridges has is that he is isolated, and his diminishing cadre of supporters, like Todd McClay, are sitting at home with their missus getting into their ears that if they stick with Bridges it is likely they will lose their jobs.
Todd Muller‘s supporters are largely List MPs or liberal wets in marginal seats. Nikki Kaye and Chris Bishop are at real risk with a swing away from National, which given the current polling, is happening. They have to make their minds up whether it not they sit there like Pavlov’s dogs and take the hit, or fight and get rid of Bridges. Muller’s team is mostly made up of former staffers, like Kaye, Nicola Willis and Chris Bishop. They don’t trust the old guard, but they haven’t yet build a large enough support base to roll Bridges. They are going to need to find a bigger team to help oust Bridges just to survive. If they stay where they are they won’t have jobs at the end of September.
Coups can be stopped, but not when you are isolated by yourself in Wellington or spending six hours driving between Wellington and Tauranga. The coup leaders also aren’t spending six hours a day in committee. There can be no meetings for drinks to work the numbers, you are relying utterly on your own team to be actually onside. If you are working face to face with them then it is really hard for them to lie to you.
What we do know is that Mark Mitchell is definitely doing the numbers. He’s personally ringing people for support for his ticket.
This has all the classic hallmarks of leadership spills that I’ve reported on before.
This gathered steam on Tuesday night.
I was contacted directly by a National Party insider and told MPs were being canvassed to see how much support there would be for a Mark Mitchell, Paula Bennett ticket.
I’m also told that MPs Nikki Kaye and Todd Muller, himself seen as a future leader, are doing the numbers for Mitchell and Bennett. Various zoom calls are taking place between MPs.
Duncan Garner is wrong that Todd Muller and Nikki Kaye are working for him. They are working for themselves.
Team Wet really needs to get that the party and their supporters have moved on from the politics of nasty that Paula Bennett embodies.
They need to sell unity, a fresh start, and the end of Paula Bennett. Opposing MPs hate her more than Bridges.
Keeping the McCully-style politics of destruction isn’t a top selling point and that means the ‘Mitch and the Bitch’ ticket isn’t really a goer.
I think the caucus is starting to realise their predicament.
Despite the denials from key players there is a coup underway and Mark Mitchell is the stalking horse.
So the stalking horse is underway to destabilise Simon Bridges.
Disregard all their denials.
This is how a coup works.
It is precisely how a coup works. Even if there wasn’t a coup before, there is now.
There are numbers mounting, and I think more than a few are shocked at the level of support one person has.
Let’s look at some of the problems Mark Mitchell has. Firstly the Mitch and the Bitch ticket doesn’t have any provincial representation. It is two metropolitan Auckland MPs and that doesn’t play well in other areas of the country.
The next problem would be the unreleased tapes that Jami-lee Ross is still sitting on that don’t show Paula Bennett in a very good light. In fact, they show her as a nasty, vindictive bitch who enjoys setting up male MPs with honey traps. Some of those male MPs in Caucus are still sensitive to the carnage caused by Bennett in the aftermath of all that.
Add in that Bennett is really, seriously disliked by a large amount of caucus. They find themselves in a similar position to the one Jacob Snell found himself in with the hit Netflix show Ozark:
What do you do, Martin, when the bride who took your breath away, becomes the wife who makes you hold your breath in terror?
The way Simon Bridges is going he is going to end up like David Cunliffe, with no mates, sitting alone at the beach with nothing but his own negative thoughts.
An uncharitable journalist would lie in wait halfway down Lambton Quay and catch him trudging home alone on the empty streets of Wellington to his apartment at the opposite end of Lambton Quay to Parliament.
If there wasn’t a coup on Tuesday, there certainly is one now.
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