The National Party is clearly in moderating mode. A recent interview with Bill English on the Agenda TV programme (transcript here) shows that National still has problems differentiating themselves from Labour. Bill English had a lot of trouble pinpointing any principles of difference with labour. He also said that National is more pragmatic than it was 15 years ago and the party isn't setting out to prove a point about ideology.
Similarly, in the UK the Conservative Party is fast offloading many of their more repugnant and distinctive principles and policies. Yet just as Chris Trotter still thinks that National are secret extremists waiting to unlease armaggedon, there are many in the British Labour Party that believe an old extremist agenda lurks beneath the new Tory image. But leftist journalist John Harris wrote an opinion piece in the Guardian a few weeks ago in which he rightly suggests that attacks on David Cameron's inner Thatcher are a tactical dead end.
