The two now-former ministers were told they had made a great contribution to Key's government. Photo / Alan Gibson
After the last couple of days, the message that the Prime Minister is on the phone will now inevitably send at least a brief twinge of nervousness up and down the spine of John Key's Cabinet colleagues.
His surprise phone calls to Kate Wilkinson and Phil Heatley on Monday night
and yesterday morning respectively were a "From John" letter rather than a "Dear John" letter. But the message was exactly the same.
The two now-former ministers were told they had made a great contribution to Key's government over the past four years. But they were no longer wanted.
In wielding the axe, Key is not yet uttering the demented "Here's Johnny" cry of Jack Nicholson's character in The Shining.
But he is nothing short of ruthless. He was not called the Smiling Assassin for nothing by fellow dealers during his job-cutting at Merrill Lynch's foreign exchange operations.
