The most obvious conclusion I think we can draw from the Winston win on Saturday night is that you must never under estimate the power of personality.

There is little logical reason why National should have lost the seat - It was theirs by 9000, it has been theirs for 50 years. The economy is booming. The government is popular. Nothing has happened between last October when they won the seat yet again, to this March when they didn’t.

The only thing that happened was Winston.

In most electorates, the candidates aren’t rock stars or household names, so the vote by in large goes to the party - the candidate is merely the representative of the party philosophy.

Occasionally over time you’ll get personal recognition for long service, or if you’re a cabinet minister you might draw personal support. So Mark Osborne was getting national support not personal support.

What Winston did was steal the show.

His win makes no difference. It didn’t tip the government. He won’t be able to pass a single policy or idea that has Northland attached to it. He will be able to make no more noise about the region than he did before.

And my bet come 2017 is this: he’ll lose the seat. But this time he was able to give the region a voice, a focal point for protest.

Labour did well to to the extent that Andrew Little’s message clearly got through, and virtually no one voted for them, as per instruction.

It doesn’t change the fact they should never have run, and that poor old Willow-Jean got hung out to dry, but at least when Little offered instructions they were by in large listened to.

National, of course, are the big losers here, and they can’t hide from it and if they try, they’ve got trouble. It was a poorly run campaign with bribery the key headline. They gave Winston a weak candidate, thus indicating before Winston entered they thought they had it in the bag. It’s a very bad look for a government that’s got plenty of good material to work with.

You don’t get a spanking like they got Saturday night without doing a fair bit of soul searching.

These are the kind of events that go part in parcel with a third term. Third terms are terms of tiredness, fatigue, trips, mistakes, and trouble.

That’s why virtually no government gets past three and into four. National need to see this as a wakeup call, and a reminder that, as good as things may be, it’s no automatic ticket to carry on. If it was they would have won.