Far from impressed with the performance of Judith during her interview on Newshub Nation this morning. When asked about her leadership by host Simon Shepherd she delivered a series of contradictory statements and evasive answers that IMHO did nothing for her claims to be an effective leader.

Collins declared her low polling was of no consequence because all opposition parties were polling low at the moment due to the Covid19 crisis delivering an advantage to sitting governments. This is not necessarily true of course, but when asked why the same logic didn’t apply to her vote against Simon Bridges, her response was “that was pre-covid”.

Actually it wasn’t. Bridges was polling well (around 42%) until Covid arrived and delivered a boost to Ardern’s approval and a blow to National’s ratings, and this is what spurred the Muller leadership challenge.

If you listen to the full video below, in the final 5 second segment, Collins inadvertently admits this, thereby contradicting her earlier statement.

Collins is also emphatic that she had to be pushed to accept the leadership, (after Muller’s collapse) that she didn’t want it, and that she only stood out of a sense of duty.

The ardent feminist Collins first stood for the leadership when John Key announced his resignation on 5 December 2016. Bill English was elected over Collins but when he announced his resignation on 13 February 2018, Collins was the first person to announce she wanted the job. She lost again to Simon Bridges.

So that’s two recorded attempts at the leadership. There was also claims by New Zealand First leader Winston Peters that he was approached to do a post–2014 election deal with National with Collins as leader. Peters went on to say he would swear an affidavit that he had been approached. Collins denied this claim.

Sorry Jude, afraid its not possible to believe you didn’t want the job, but maybe its time you faced up to the fact that you were never going to measure up for it anyway.