John Key is promising to work on his lying, after a series of scandals rocked his government.

Mr Key continues to be asked by journalists how much he knew about the illegal spying activities of the GCSB, and about the police and spy agency operations against Kim Dotcom.

National Party insiders are becoming increasingly concerned about the potential effects of Key’s clumsy lies on the subject.

“These blunders threaten to do real damage to his reputation”, said one insider.

“The credibility he established as a result of four years of careful and considered lying is now under threat”.

Business leaders have urged the prime minister to act quickly to improve his lying.

They are worried that his failure to fool anyone about what he knew and when, could quickly escalate to a full-blown inability to tell convincing lies about anything.

They fear that the deterioration in Key’s capacity to pull the wool over the eyes of the voting public could result in questions being asked about the government’s policies of cutting spending, slashing taxes, and reducing public services.

“Burble burble, cutting red tape, burble burble, tax cuts”, said Business New Zealand CEO Phil O’Reilly.

John Key today acknowledged that he would have to get better at lying.

“You knuckleheads keep catching me out” he told journalists “I guess I’ll just have to lift my game”.

Key then displayed a graph showing that the New Zealand economy was catching up with Australia’s.

“Did that one work?” he asked.