KEY POINTS:
The Prime Minister has gone off me. I keep hearing from colleagues that she has been complaining loudly about these columns and my work on Radio Live's drive show in the afternoons, when I often interview politicians. Apparently she believes I have "gone Tory".
We've known each other
since university days and I've always been moderately liberal in outlook, so she is puzzled by my criticism of the Government.
I have not had a road to Damascus experience and decided National is the way, the truth and the light.
It is simply that this Government has been in power for nine years and after that length of time it is inevitable it will have done things that provoke criticism.
By contrast, National is far harder to lay a glove on. It has published little policy that can be usefully analysed and, when it does carefully put its head above the parapet to make a stand on an issue, its attacks have been generally well-judged and hard to fault.
I say this by way of explanation and in the hope this next bit doesn't cause Helen to choke on her cornflakes as she reads it this morning.
Labour will lose the next election because of its arrogance and inability to focus on what is important.
Those lucky enough to own a home have found their largest asset is rapidly shrinking in value. Those unlucky enough not to own a home are now realising they will never do so, despite any decline in prices.
Inflation is eroding family incomes at a rate of 3.4 per cent, grocery prices rose in the past year by 8.7 per cent. That great family staple of the bigger block of cheese has gone up by more than 18 per cent, bread more than 7 per cent, and butter rocketed in price by one-third.
Petrol prices have lifted a massive 20.5 per cent, and mortgage rates push the 10 per cent barrier. Oh yes, and my friendly power company just sent me a letter saying it was about to hike my power bill.
Families are beginning to really feel the pain.
The one factor insulating New Zealand from a truly nasty recession has been full employment.
Last week, the tip of an ugly iceberg surfaced with news that Fisher & Paykel Appliances was shedding 430 jobs by moving its manufacturing operations offshore, and ANZ National was "outsourcing" 500 jobs to Bangalore, India. Other banks are sure to follow.
More and more manufacturers will follow F&P's example. I get the feeling one day soon all we will have left in the country are dairy farmers and public servants.
Some of these factors are outside the control of the Government but it would be nice to see it concentrating on the issues that concern us.
Instead, Labour whinges about John Key. The National Party leader had a point last week when he accused the Government of fiddling while the economy burned. He asked what was the cost of the Government using countless bureaucrats to endlessly scour records in an attempt to discover inconsistencies in any utterance he made.
Helen Clark's response was to yell "Diddums", and Michael Cullen told Key to "get used to the fact he is playing with the big boys now".
Displaying a sad and pathetic chip on his shoulder, Cullen went on to sneer that Key was the "MP for King's College". As a child, Cullen attended Christ's College on a scholarship, an experience that obviously scarred him and left him with some kind of weird class hatred of those he terms "rich pricks".
Can I suggest to Dr Cullen that the rest of us "poor pricks" would prefer he concentrated on delivering a budget that took the pressure off our diminishing disposable incomes rather than making infantile personal attacks?
Labour has become obsessed by John Key. The Government launched a campaign of ridicule to try to dent his credibility and at every opportunity it seeks to portray him as some kind of evil mastermind plotting to sell the family silver and deliver us into some kind of globalised bondage.
For many of us these attacks don't ring true. Key is a quietly spoken, thoughtful sort of guy, obviously bright but somewhat colourless.
He is not Hannibal Lecter and all attempts to convince us that he is are doomed to fail.
The gaping hole in National's strategy is its lack of what Jim Bolger once called "the vision thing".
You don't get an impression that it stands for a new, super-improved, better New Zealand.
In marketing terms it has no clear brand identity and leaves itself open to accusations it is "Labour-lite", that all it has to offer is an ability to govern slightly better than the guys who are doing it now.
Yet Labour is so blinded by fear and stupidity that the limp offering from National will probably be enough to propel it into power.