Blue Blood: The Inside Story of the National Party in Crisis

‘A political bombshell book’ - Sunday Star Times

Beginning with the shock resignation of John Key, Blue Blood reveals the reasons behind one of the most dramatic falls in popularity in New Zealand’s political history and tells the full story of how the National Party went to war with itself.

Informed by campaign emails and internal party communications, and with commentary from key advisors, staffers, and past and current MPs, Andrea Vance sheds new light on the ministers and motivations that made headlines: negotiations with the kingmaker, high-profile resignations, secret recordings and text messages, allegations of bullying and harassment, and leaders gone rogue on the campaign trail.

Blue Blood takes the reader inside the rooms where fatal decisions were made, asks what values lie at the heart of a modern-day National Party, and questions who else might be waiting in the wings.

‘I was unable to put it down. Stranger than fiction and yet entirely factual. A timely reminder of how quickly things can change in politics’ Tova O'Brien, Today FM

‘A bizarre, gothic psycho-drama of National’s recent political history’ The Listener

‘A blockbuster of a book that reads like a thriller - or a horror story’ Capsule