By Chris Trotter – OPINION
Power, if it is to have any lasting legacy, must be seized. Not inherited, not bestowed, but taken. Those who seize power do so for many reasons: self-preservation; personal aggrandizement; to effect changes long desired or too long delayed. Power stripped of the crucial element of conscious personal purpose is reduced to mere placeholding, and placeholding represents the end of politics, the final step taken before all power is lost.
Christopher Luxon did not seize power; he inherited it from a National Party caucus at its wits’ end. His colleagues bestowed the party leadership upon him because they had run out of choices. That he was new and untested mattered less than the certainty that any other candidate would likely prolong and intensify the internecine strife that was making National unelectable.
That Luxon had arrived wearing John Key’s cloak of approbation made his elevation to the leadership considerably easier. Key had made winning and wielding power look easy; if Luxon possessed anything remotely resembling the talents of his sponsor, then National was saved.
Five years on National does not feel saved.
Those with the skill and experience to read election results correctly understood that the victory of the Right in 2023 was a reflection of the electorate’s profound hostility toward the hapless Labour Government which a majority of New Zealanders had elected only three years earlier. The parties of the Right had won by default in 2023. More importantly, they had not won well.
Christopher Luxon may have been promoted by John Key, but he could not lift his party to the heights scaled by his predecessors. Between 2008 and 2014 the Key-led National Party’s share of the Party Vote never fell below 44.93 percent and twice topped 47 percent. Even Bill English, Key’s successor as Prime Minister, secured 44.4 percent of the Party Vote in the General Election of 2017.
Luxon brought home just 38.06 percent of the Party Vote in 2023, a figure which, at 6 percentage points below National’s 2017 result, conferred ample (if undeserved) opportunities for mischief-making upon Act and NZ First, the volatile coalition partners to which Luxon was bound for the next three years.
Once again Luxon had inherited power; once again it had been bestowed upon him. If he was not to become a placeholder, then he would have to emulate Shakespeare’s character Hotspur from Henry IV Part 1. Being warned by a fellow nobleman that his plan is dangerous, Hotspur replies:
Why, that’s certain. ’Tis
to sleep, to drink; but I
of this nettle, danger, we
Luxon is no Hotspur, he has little appetite for the stinging nettles of coalition politics – no matter how precious the flowers they guard. Doubtless Luxon would also point out that Hotspur’s reckless career did not end well.
True enough, but in not risking the dangers of staring down his coalition partners; by not convincing them that he would stake everything for the power he needed to be an effective political leader; Luxon not only failed to avoid danger, but he also lost any chance of securing the precious flower of electoral safety.
Luxon’s supporters would no doubt object that he is not interested in developing the political instincts of a medieval monarch. The skills he prizes are those of an effective CEO. Luxon is content to pick his subordinates and leave them to it. The role he claims is not that of Captain, but Coach. His job is to promote optimum performance from his Cabinet and purge it of those who fail to deliver.
Unfortunately, politics doesn’t work like that. In politics one has to be a player, and to reach the top one has to be the best player. In politics leaders may be blessed with many talents, but if they are unable to demonstrate competence, provoke admiration and inspire loyalty, then they will lack that most important and indispensable component of successful political leadership – followers!
In this regard there is nothing to choose between the political players of the modern era and those of the Middle Ages. To stand on the stage of the Beehive Theatrette and mumble incoherently is the contemporary equivalent of falling off one’s horse and dropping one’s sword at a medieval tournament. It is not the sort of behaviour that inspires either confidence or admiration, and it most certainly does not inspire loyalty!
To be a poor player when many of one’s subordinates are clearly superior players should at the very least encourage humility and modesty in a leader. Failure to demonstrate a sustained improvement in performance, however, should encourage a letter of resignation.
Sadly, very few leaders respond in this fashion. Most commonly poorly performing leaders react by becoming jealous and resentful of their subordinates’ successes. Almost always this causes a leader to behave vindictively – especially if unflattering comparisons begin to be made between a prime minister’s failures and the successes of his or her most effective ministers.
Christopher Luxon’s public humiliation of his own most effective minister, Chris Bishop, offers a classic example of a leader grown fearful of a too obviously superior player of the political game. By stripping Bishop of his role as Campaign Manager of the 2026 Election Luxon was openly insulting his most able lieutenant. That Bishop may have been testing the caucus’s loyalty to Luxon in the latter part of 2025 does not excuse the Prime Minister’s behaviour, a leader worthy of the name would not have provoked such a test!
How will Chris Bishop respond to being removed from National’s electoral control-room? If Christopher Luxon is as unlucky as King Richard II, Bishop will take his lead from Henry Bolingbroke (1367-1413).
The most formidable knight in England and heir to the vast estates of the Duchy of Lancaster, Bolingbroke earned the undying enmity of Richard by engineering the removal of a slew of the King’s most corrupt court favourites. Not content with exiling Henry, Richard decided to deny him his inheritance, seizing his late father’s lands and castles for himself.
Unsurprisingly, Henry returned to England and raised the banner of rebellion against Richard. Very soon most of the nobility was riding at his side. They reasoned, quite correctly, that if the King could seize the Duke of Lancaster’s property, then he could just as easily seize theirs. Richard was forced to abdicate. Henry Bolingbroke became King Henry IV.
Political commentators will reject this scenario on the grounds that all Bishop has to do is wait for Luxon to lose the election and then replace him. Perhaps they are right. Perhaps, in this cynical age, theirs is indeed the most sensible option.
Those of a more chivalric temperament will beg to differ. A leader, actual or potential, does not keep his crown by squandering the admiration and respect of his followers. If Chris Bishop means to use political power for a purpose, then he would be wise to seize it, now, and go on to lead his party and the coalition to victory.
That would prove to his party, his coalition partners, and the country, that he is indubitably New Zealand’s best political player. Not a placeholder, but the man who should be king.
