Mike Hosking: Why the Northcote byelection result is more interesting than we might have imagined

Opinion

If we are to apply a bit of logic to the Northcote byelection, the message peddled this week that Labour are close and this could be a boilover is more for headline purposes - if not the purposes of the Labour Party - than any real version of political coverage.

History is instructive. Byelections don't go well for governments.

Northcote is a safe National seat. And National is the most popular party in the country.

Further, the polling that's allegedly driving this piece of drama is almost always ropey.

The scale of polling is small, therefore accuracy is highly questionable. And traditionally, given next to no one turns up for these things, you really don't have a clue what's going to happen - far less the ability to call it as being down to a couple of points.

Most importantly of all, no government has ever tipped a seat in a byelection while in office.

And that's before you get to the fact that no matter what happens, whatever the result, it won't affect the government or the running of the country. In other words, it counts for basically nothing.

Except for image, and this is where Simon Bridges needs the result to go his way and preferably well.

The two polls out this week show National is still the most popular party, but he is failing to fire.

A loss in Northcote could be interpreted as a vote about him: a loss of confidence, and a message the party made the wrong choice.

Even if that isn't the message directly, you can be sure Labour will make sure it's seen that way.

Labour of course have nothing to lose. Jonathan Coleman had won the seat by 6000 votes. They should have no show of winning.

So Bridges has all the work to do, it's his seat, and a safe one to boot.

If the polls are right, why are they right? What's going wrong? Why would the Labour vote go up in Northcote, but not on a national basis?

And why, if it is going up for Labour, would it be going up in a National seat?

See? None of it makes sense. If you apply logic there is no sensible rational for it. Which either means the race isn't close, the polls are bogus, or Bridges has a potential nightmare on his hands.

Even a close race will be uncomfortable. The only upside is that it won't last that long.

If National wins by a razor-thin margin, it'll be embarrassing for a week and then we'll all move on.

What they really need, of course, is to take their majority and boost it. That would give them momentum and a very real argument that the government's direction is in trouble and not supported by the majority.

All of which makes, for now anyway, next Saturday's race and result more interesting than we might have initially imagined.