Barry Soper: After an extraordinary week, National must make sense of it all

The past week in politics has been extraordinary.

This time five days ago just a handful of people, John Key's wife Bronagh, his chief of staff and Bill English knew about the bomb he was about to detonate.

For the rest of us it was a "we-remember-what-we-were-doing" moment.

For Labour it was a high-five time, there were broad smiles all round, the main obstacle to their hope of pulling off an election win next year had been removed.

National MPs were left picking their jaws off the carpet.

The man who had taken them to three election wins, and who had always maintained he was looking forward to a fourth, was calling it a day.

They suddenly felt uncomfortable, for a decade the party didn't have to think about a leader, they were more than happy with the one they had.

Since the bombshell they've been scrambling to make sense of it all and to turn their attention to an alternative.

A number were peeved that their revered leader seemed to be taking their decision away from them by anointing Bill English as his successor with the bubble and squeak Paula Bennett as his deputy.

As it was, the crowning glory for English was the glowing Treasury forecasts, and the other two wannabes, Judith Collins and Jonathan Coleman after the top job were history.

While English was confirming his numbers to be PM, John Key was turning the first sod of the Puhoi to Warkworth Motorway. Photo / Doug Sherring

In reality it was a Clayton's contest and now the Prime Minister-elect Bill English has the nightmare job of rewarding his supporters and dumping some of his colleagues, but that's leadership.

And there's another decision he'll have to confront with Labour losing the last of its ex-leaders David Shearer to the United Nations at the end of January.

English will have to decide whether to have a by-election in Mt Albert, or call an election within six months of Shearer's departure.

Even though a revived Andrew Little says the low polling Labour Party's ready to go to the electorate, that's unlikely to happen with the new leader, who'll be wanting time to prove that life without Key is possible along with a new-look National Party lineup on board.

And Little would be wise to bide his time and use it to understand what the centre ground is rather than dismissing Helen Clark's view that you've got to win it to secure the Treasury benches.

He'd do well to appreciate that she, like Key, knew how to identify it and as a result won three elections apiece.