National MPs should stop their intrigues, changing the leadership won’t help right now | Liam Hehir

Judith Collins may trail badly in the polls, but MPs should only think about replacing her if a natural alternative leader emerges

Followers of baseball in the US have a saying: winning fixes everything. A team can suffer player scandals and be beset by dysfunctional management. If they're hitting enough home runs, however, things don't tend to fall apart.

The corollary of this would be that losing breaks everything. And while it's a bit trite to compare sports to politics, New Zealand's opposition National party resembles nothing if not a losing baseball team. Thumped in last year's general election, conceding a rare absolute parliamentary majority to Jacinda Ardern's Labour , nothing seems to have gone right for the party that was once called the natural party of government in New Zealand.