David Farrar has a post on Kiwiblog listing the fastest risers to become Prime Minister. They are:
- John Key – 6 years
- David Lange – 7 years
- Jenny Shipley – 10 years
- Geoffrey Palmer – 10 years
- Bill Rowling – 12 years
- Mike Moore – 12 years
- Richard Seddon – 14 years
So it might be worth looking at how long the fast risers before Dick Seddon lasted:
- John Key – ?
- David Lange – 5 years
- Jenny Shipley – 2 years
- Geoffrey Palmer – 1 year
- Bill Rowling – 1 year
- Mike Moore – 2 months
An average of less than two years.
Hmmmmm…
…. only two of them voted in by the public ?
Interesting post, John A. I think a more interesting statistic is that four out of the six people on the list are Labour, and only David Lange and John Key won an election when party leader. From that list, I think Peter Fraser is the only person to have won an election after succeeding a Prime Minister.
Lange was PM in name only for much of that time.
I thought the same when I saw the list. It hardly inspires confidence.
Add in King Dicks figures and you get an average service as PM of just under 4 years. So on average they all had more than one term ?
Can you say outlier?
King Dick governed before the modern party system evolved. It was just his Liberals and independents until Reform formed and won its first election in 1911. It’s hard to lose when you’re the only party. No wonder he was called King Dick.
The modern experience is that inexperienced MPs who become PMs don’t last long. The only one before Key who hadn’t been a minister before being PM was Lange and look what a disaster he was.
captcha: brands adjusting
Four of them were Labour MP’s. Im guessing Key will have a second term.
At this rate, Brett, he’s not even going to have a first term.
“Sprinters”
i think that should read “Souffles”
At this rate???
He seems to be doing well.
If you graph (scatter plot) the Years MP v. Years PM you’ll find that there is actually an inverse correlation, and Key will probably last 4 to 5 years on the basis of the numbers above.