Week in politics

Such is John Key's Midas touch, he could probably sell ice-cubes to Eskimos - and at a premium price. Selling the merits of even partial privatisations to once-bitten, ever-shy New Zealanders ahead of the November election will be a far tougher test of the Prime Minister's undoubted skills and acumen.

It may sound barmy, but maybe the Treasury should be added to the list of state assets National has singled out for post-election share floats.

This was classic attack politics. You get in first with your version of events. In a sound-bite democracy no-one remembers your opponent's rebuttal.

John Key and his National Party colleagues may well take a hit in the polls in the wake of Thursday's mediocre Budget.

Bill English's third Budget will be tough, perhaps the toughest in a generation. But this next Thursday's document won't be as tough as people fear. Or as tough as people have been led to believe.

If the law is an ass, then Parliament's rules are sometimes as stubborn and stupid as a pack of mules.

How many more times is TV news going to repeat that clip of an ungainly-looking Don Brash slowly and awkwardly squeezing into the driver's seat of a midget car at Auckland's Western Springs speedway in 2005?

For the first time in quite some time, the National minority Government this week looked a bit ragged around the edges. Not hugely so, mind you. But wariness seems to have succumbed to a degree of weariness.

The Greens have long enjoyed the advantage of having a clearly-defined brand. They have long had the policies to give that brand real substance.

Phil Goff's assertion that he has emerged from the Darren Hughes crisis with his grip on the Labour leadership having been strengthened has an element of truth.