Every now and then you have to go out on a bit of a limb. I am going to do that with regards to the new National Party leadership. In the few weeks since Christopher Luxon became leader, it seems like there has been a sea-change.

My first choice was Simon Bridges, for reasons detailed here. I didn’t have a vote, however. Of the people whose opinion counts most, the greater levels of support went to the first term MP for Botany.

I do not know Luxon at all, but you can see why he was able to build a large base of support among National MPs in spite of his parvenu status. National MPs had reported being quietly impressed with his thinking for some time.

It goes without saying, naturally, that trends and forces are the most important things in politics. Governments in New Zealand start to lose support when voters become tried of seeing and hearing the same politicians making the same excuses. Only then do large numbers of swing voters start casting around for an alternative.

I cannot help but wonder whether we are reaching that point with the Ardern ministry. Chronologically, she has only been the prime minister for a touch over four years. In terms of relentless exposure, however, it feels like it has been much, much longer than that.

Since 2017, New Zealand has faced a number of taxing challenges that, in the era of presidential prime ministers, has required much focus on the pronouncements of Jacinda Ardern. For the most part, this has been of immense political advantage as it provides a direct line to the voting public.

All things have a saturation point, however, and the observable softening of support for Labour since the last election points to this vulnerability.

That only gets you so far. The alternatives need to hold out the hope of change with some plausibility. National leaders who were well-recognised sartraps of Key and English years will always struggle with that.

Luxon does not represent that era. He cannot reasonably be expected to answer for everything that happened between 2009 and 2017. The housing crisis can no more be pinned on him now than it could be on Ardern when she became the leader of the Labour Party.

But while the past cannot be hung around Luxon’s neck like an albatross, Luxon has demonstrated that he shares one of John Keys core strengths. He is comfortable in his own skin.

It’s not that he does not make verbal mistakes. He has already had some changers. So did Key, however, more or less consistently throughout his career.

The trick is not to be defensive about them. That sounds easy, but for anyone being attacked on live radio that sense of sangfroid can be hard to maintain. Key very rarely betrayed anger and neither has Luxon (so far).

The attractiveness of a fresh start with a trusted style can be a potent mix in politics - especially when people are in the mood for change but also feeling nervous.

As long as the leader of the opposition had a long track record to be criticised on, the most important thing for National to have was a theory of the case. Like a prosecutor convincing a jury, the opposition had to present a simple and coherent narrative about why the government needed to go. All political statements by the party needed to have been consistent with that message.

National has not been able to pull that off since losing power. Luxon, on the other hand, opens up a new possibility. Where voters are eager to the challenger the benefit of the doubt, being an acceptable alternative may be just enough. A bit of moderation here, some triangulation there can play into existing demand for change.

That requires the neutering of more extreme elements in your own coalition and so Luxon can take heart from the recent TPU-Curia poll showing that National has significantly reversed its lost support to the Libertarianish Act Party. That swing, which seems to mostly come on the back of perceptions around his capability rather than anything overtly ideological, now puts him in a good position to re-assure the centre.

It goes without saying that this is all early days. For all I know something will blow up the moment I publish this post, proving all of the above wrong. At this early stage, however, things are going about as well as they could be.

Before Luxon became leader, many National MPs had privately written off the 2023 election. They’re not doing that now. There is a perception of competitiveness.

That means MPs are more likely to feel like they have something to lose. That may feed into a virtuous cycle of better behaviour feeding into better presentation of an alternative government.

All things going well….