Friday, May 11
6.20 am
Strange to see how quickly it all shakes down into blithering debacle for the Coalition, and how good Malcolm Turnbull now looks in retrospect.
They have lost all chance of a No Confidence-led parliamentary coup now Katter (as I alone predicted) has opted for eighteen more months of his parliamentary wage and time to build his party and both Slipper and Thomson prove not to be sexual beasts and corrupt finaglers but sad, sombre, harmless human beings, and Abbott, in his reply, a fucking fool (goodbye, old friend, adieu; when it ends with friends it ends), by asserting his family man’s credentials and yelling Class War and Moral Stench and urging Labor to do away with Gillard when her achievements have at last reached critical mass. He seems not to know his arse from his elbow and his considerable Jesuitical debating skills have gone a-glimmering as his own dark past as a student groper came breathing heavily and leering behind him in the mirror.
He has a few weeks as Leader, and he is finished. It is he who chose Class War by saying the lower orders would steal their children’s money, and he who voted against them getting, in some cases, two thousand four hundred dollars a year for two kids in high school and two in primary and thus lost a million voters he had on Monday, or perhaps a million and a half. It was he who said he would find, somehow, fifty billion in cuts when he knew, or should have known, and must have been told by Robb or Hockey that this would cost four hundred thousand people their jobs and one and a half million pendant children, aunts and mothers-in-law their hope, life plans, addresses, self-esteem and and peace of mind.
6.10 pm
And then came Kroger and what he told Jon Faine. Amongst what he told him was that the Liberals’ preferred Leader, a devoutly esteemed Federal Treasurer for eleven years, thought Abbott, who once took out his wife, was an ‘economic illiterate’; and this on the day after it was revealed he was once up on a charge of, what, inappropriate touching, rather worse than what Slipper was charged with, and righteously suspended for. Page 68 now awaits him, whenever Albo, Gillard or Carr or Crikey chooses to spring it; and he will soon look as cornered as Thomson, as pathetic, sad, abashed and fucked overand pleading in the dock.
Twenty-four hours is a long time in politics, and I ask Fran, Michele, Steve, Laurie, Piers, Andrew and Barrie, who have thought Labor to be on the mat unconscious and being counted out, to apologise in these columns for being so shallow and silly.
And to realise that Murdoch’s fate and the Liberals’ fate were closely connected; and neither will prevail.
Name:
Bob, I am not sure that they need a non-confidence motion anymore, the longer the Government sticks around the worse it will be. Slipper and Thomoson legal processes to come, the only way the ALP can survive is to change leader at some point (my view is Rudd though I know you disagree) and call a swift election. Why because they must move prior to any leadership change in the LNP, which will lead to dismal polling figures for the incumbent PM.
PS There is a nasty rumour floating around parliament which has now made its way into the public domain, including the name, and has now gone viral. Surprisingly Piers Akerman is defending the person in question, without naming names in the Daily Telegraph.
No, it’s fine. A lot of lies are being told and one is that they’ve made up their minds and they won’t change them. But the vote has gone from 41 to 47 to 43 to 42 which means they do change their minds. And if Abbott threatens to take 1500 dollars from 100,000 familes he will lose, oh, 170,000 votes and that is enough to win by.
so many lies. The latest a Nielsen Poll taken before Abbott’s speech, and during it.
Ridiculous.
If Katter is the casting vote (unlikley) who keeps the government in power, his party will never get off the ground as he too will be entangled in the Red Queens web of doom, just as the pawns Oakeshott and Windsor are now.
It started out a wonderful day with Kroger vs Costello, with a bit of Hockey thrown in, all good for the ALP.
Then McTernan story hits the airwaves, what the hell is this guy on? So new questions for Gillard to answer on her judgement regarding choice of staff and does she tolerate her staff abusing people, probably healdines in the murdoch media and in question time. Nice, with the Australia day debacle, thrown in, this guys is a real winner on communications strategy. The ALP appears beyond saving. Bob perhaps you could offer to replace McTernan? Older wiser heads are needed now!
The McTernan story is confined to talkback radio in Sydney and imbeciles who read Bolt and Akerman.
Nothing to see here.
The Today show is just in Sydney is it?
I have known Sir Ellis for some time and amired his writing and intellectual rigour greatly. In recent years he has admired many qualities that he saw in Tony Abbott. He wears his heart on his sleeve. Now at last he appears to see Abbott for what he is. I asked him recently why it took him so long but he chose not to reply. It’s hard to go past that wonderful epigram, “Why do people take an instant dislike to Bronwyn Bishop?” Answer: “Because it saves time,”
And then again, if the coin had fallen tails instead of heads, and Abbott had joined the Labs instead of the Libs, which was an option at the time, given that he saw his destiny as being in politics of any sort, we would all love him to death, salute his o’erweening intellect and queue to kiss his hairy muscly arse.
He’s not a Labor person on any level. The DLP were never Labor, that’s where Bob got confused. Evatt had their number. Also, in my view Abbott’s arse is more likely to be smooth rather than hairy, and polished like a diamond. He runs on adrenaline, not hormones. The depth and authenticity of a testosterone fuelled existence could only be achieved by Abbott after a fifty year fasting and Buddhist meditation discipline retreat. At which point he would call those faint chills emanating from his lower chakra “nirvana” and call it a day.
Well said Reader1 ! Back in the Bulletin days, (1980s) they thought Abbott might be a match for the NSW Labor catholic right, which really never split the way Victoria and Queensland did.
As you know, Doc is one of my heroes. I don’t think he can be held responsible for Labor’s years in the wilderness; he went within a handful of votes in a handful of seats in 1961. One may wonder how Australia might have been a different better society had he won, with all those DLP drongoes on the outer.
The only Thomson and Slipper scandals are the way the media think they can manipulate non-stories based only on gossip.