Fairfax brought out today a Nielsen Poll showing Labor two party preferred on 42, the Coalition 58, Abbott’s performance admired by 44 percent of the respondents, disliked by 60 percent, Gillard admired by 35 and execrated by 60, and Abbott Preferred Prime Minister by 50 to 42.
The poll was taken, however, during Wednesday and Thursday, nine-tenths of it before Abbott had completed his reply and all of it before Craig had made a fair fist, some think, of his innocence and Kroger had bagged Costello for bagging Abbott, his party leader, as ‘an economic illiterate’.
So the figures might well have been right on that particular Wednesday, but they were, in context, in the scheme of things, very, very unfair.
What has happened in the meantime is that Abbott has been ruined. He has been shown to have been in the dock for sexual assault, a crime, though unproven, worse than any of the venal sins that Slipper and Craig have been bewhispered of. And he has been shown as well to be the sort of class warrior and private school snob who says the lower orders can’t be trusted with the money we give them to look after their children with, they might go out and spend it on drink or greyhound betting.
What has happened in the meantime is a civil war in the Liberal Party’s Victorian Branch, which is one byelection away from losing power there.
The poll moreover pits only Gillard against Abbott as preferred Prime Minister (on the day before he made an innumerate klutz of himself on the floor of the parliament, and was revealed to have been accused by a famous Protestant former Treasurer of being ‘a DLP Stooge’.
It’s almost certain the numbers would be 45-45 now for preferred Prime Minister and 48 Labor to 52 Coalition two party preferred (though there are nine parties sitting in the House and five in the Senate; discuss). It’s almost certain too that Abbott cannot survive what is on page 48 of the Duffy book whenever it is brought up by Albo in Question Time, and he cannot survive the libel suit Craig will bring against him and Pyne for prejudging and smearing before a proper process of law a man innocent of most, if not all, of the charges levelled against him by his grimy union usurpers, whoever they were.
Nielsen also did not do what they had to do, a poll of Shorten versus Abbott as Preferred Prime Minister, Combet versus Abbott, Albo versus Abbott, Smith versus Abbott, Carr versus Abbott, Faulkner versus Abbott, Clare versus Abbott, Plibersek versus Abbott, Roxon versus Abbott and so on, and thus give a clear picture of how many Labor voters or Labor leaners or oncers or old timers were still in the mix if Gillard went. And how Carr Labor or Shorten Labor would go against the Abbott-Truss-Joyce Coalition.
They cheated, in short, as Murdoch always has, this once, if only this once.
And they should be ashamed. And they should not do it again.
They should do a call-back poll tomorrow night, and see how different the numbers now are.
And prove that I lie.
Name:
I am afraid to say, Bob, that I think the people conspiring against Thompson are the same people who conspired against Richard (I am not a crook) Nixon and Bill (I did not have sex with that woman) Clinton. Why does Thompson just not rely on the time honoured defences of NSW coppers caught with their fingers in the till and say “I won it at the races”.
The Thompson debacle is in a different category to the Slipper affair. There are, I believe, real doubts about the bona fides of the harassment claim and there is also a strong Godwin Grech aroma about the pre-knowledge or worse of the LNP. With regard to Slipper’s expenses, I suspect that it will be shown that Slipper has been doing what he is commonly believed to have done in the past, that is work the rules on expenses to the maximum extent allowable.I would bet that there are parliamentarians on both sides that also do this.
As to the polls, I think that there is now sufficient common ground in all the polling agencies (Neilsen, Newspoll, Galaxy, Essential, Morgan) to conclude that the Labor vote is historically low and that there needs to be either a miracle or a total Coalition stuff up for it to win the next election.
“before Craig had made a fair fist, some think, of his innocence”
Are you kidding me? Laurie was practically laughing at the fantasy land Thomson lives in. Setting one up with hookers is typically done for the “pictures” not for setting up a forensic trail for accountants to follow years later.
He will use privilege to make accusations that he dare not repeat in the public domain. Spreading and tarnishing the union movement, and thus the ALP even more than it is now.
Though his explanation for election expenditure was a strong point and I am sure even the poorest of HSU members is glad their money contributing to the killing of work choices.
No one is listening they will happily take the cash and run to grab the bats to take to Gillard at the next election.
What will make them listen? With Gillard not even proof that she is the second coming of Jesus would suffice.
Dumping the carbon tax and returning the previous PM to power, anything else is rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.
Illegitimacy sits on the front bench with its arms around the PM and Treasurer, casting a shadow across the Government and is not to depart, unless drastic and unthinkably risky actions are taken, that will make some ministers gnash their teeth and weep with despair.
So the Fairfax media today said that the parliament should not set themselves up as judge and jury, yet it is the Fairfax media who have destroyed
Thomson based on the words of a couple of crooks.
Here is a question – why the fuck would Thomson or any good looking guy need to pay for sex.
A stray fuck is free for the price of a drink.
And you can extend this defence to anything involving sex – I could not possibly have raped her, Your Honour, I am too good looking.
That has been done; it works quite well with any sensible jury. What handsome man has been convicted of the rape of an ordinary-looking woman, without overwhelming corroborative evidence?
And if that drink had a little umbrella in it…. ?
And by the way even if “Thomson paid for hookers for one mad spree in his whole life while he was travelling with his wife, so fucking what?
It’s not a crime.
Paying for it with other people’s money seems to be the problem. If he paid for it with his own money, nobody would give a toss, as you well know and are deliberately ignoring.
Which part of it did not fucking happen can’t you hear or read?
Explain why a man with zero history of such behaviour and no history since would go off the rails in one short period of time in this manner?
And as there were no rules around the credit cards what is the point of the media and others still prattling about it.
Most of the posters on this Blog, and its Master, have a political point of view which they generally try to put rationally. At times, their reasoning, right-inclined and left-inclined can be wild and wooly and tainted by their political and social biases, but, I believe that they are generally sincere in their wish to participate in the debate. And I don’t exclude myself from these observations.
You are a major and glaring glaring exception. You make wild, sweeping statements phrased as if you and only you know the real facts. You respond to other’s posts with abuse and obscenities. You spit out bile instead of argument and you have no concept of rational thought. And you heap hypocrisy upon hypocrisy.
Your posts add nothing to this Blog nor to the other Blogs that you frequent.
Simon, you sound like a normal well adjusted and intelligent person to me. You can’t argue with a madman or simpleton and I’m not sure which one Bob Ellis is.
1. Make it personal – well done, dawson
2. Enact power play – nice work, simon
3. Patronise – beautiful touch, Frank
The only thing missing was an actual reference to the subject matter. A minor detail when you’re wielding such Dungeons and Dragons like rhetorical weaponry in the form displayed above. That’s what I call conversing with a capital “C”. Communication as an X-treme sport. Moral crusade to the max.
Why would Craig Thompson visit a hooker and did he in fact do so? Who cares? This is all about Marilyn’s personal characteristics, by way of Craig Thompson’s personal characteristics, redirected via Peter Slipper’s personal characterisitcs. Which is all anyone need concern themselves with.
Reader 1, if you cared to look at my earlier post on this page, you will find that I did address the subject matter of Bob’s post.
And I would direct you, and any other reader so inclined, to compare the various posts over the past few weeks by me and by Marilyn and see just who is the one who resorts to personal remarks.
In an ideal world, your post is supposed to address what Marilyn said in the post before, seeing as that is what you were responding to. Personal remarks are irrelvant in the context of –
Whether or not Thomson is guilty
What he is guilty of exactly
To what extent is any information verifiable
If guilty, how bad is it
Perhaps, you could advise Marilyn on the subject of personal remarks.
Forget the fucking personal remarks, you ninny. It’s just a cheap attempt at deflection. The subject matter is the Craig Thompson thing. The Liberals brought it up and claim it’s the most important thing ever, then refuse to actually get bogged down in any detail. Like whether it’s true or not.
Frank, let me be clear. My observations were not directed against Bob Ellis. I disagree with Bob quite often but he generally engages in rational debate on this Blog and, unlike the Bolts, the Akermans, and a lot of Crikey writers, is prepared to allow commentators on his Blog to argue against him and, at times, insult him.
My comments are not directed against posters like Doug Q with whom I almost always disagree. Again, he is prepared to engage in rational debate and does not continually debase those who do not agree with him.
This is true of most of the posters on this site. It is not true of Marilyn.
You just don’t want word of Marilyn’s goods/lowdown/skinny getting out onto the street.
“Out flew the web and floated wide, the mirror crack’d from side to side”
Mr Coyote – “polite”?!
Oh dear. Except for the bit where he called a female poster a “c..t” for defending another poster he’d called a psychopath or something. And Mr Ellis tried to paper it over by falsely suggesting the obscenity-hurling was two-way traffic.
Civilisation, a Thin Veneer. Rice Paper for some. Pretty, high-falutin, Shakespeare-quote-covered Rice Paper
Perhaps it is your concept of civilisation that is paper thin. To the point of transparency, I would suggest.
And if minority governments are illegitimate then there are a lot of governments around the world in the same position.
What the media need to do is ask why they are so fucking obsessed with a non-scandal when ASIO had a woman and her 2 innocenct children dragged off the streets and jailed last night – without charge – without anyone checking that they had the right to and with an Attorney General seemingly ignorant of the rule of law.
Most amusing, Bob. The only poll that matters is the one in November 2013, and Labor will win that one handily.
Perhaps you could tell us why you want Abbott as PM.
And perhaps you are not aware that Bolt banned me because I showed that he was lying about a particular family that Bob and I both love.
Simple enough; the scare campaigns will all have reached their use-by dates, and Abbott will fall soon enough – the Liberals and their bosses are unforgiving of failures.
Labor will win any election held after August 2013. Quote me.
“superior weaponry”, yes Frank… but thine blogmeister wields some magical erasing death ray for anyone who pricks the bubble of his nonsensical pretense. The Emperors’ New Clothes akin to Intellectual Dishonesty. Only about 4 people are fooled…
Whatever Craig Thomson has or hasn’t done, Craig Thomson is not “handsome”, nor is he good-looking.
Smooth, sly, unctuous – face and demeanour. And some suckers would take a used Ducati off his hands. Unbelievable.
Handsome!?
Abbott is a ‘private school snob’? How silly is that.
The pictures of him surfing must be upsetting.
Oh he does look good! – so look away.
Many have to overcome the fact that Abbott hunted down Pauline Hanson, then stated in ‘Battlelines’ that her prison sentence was BRIEF; have to overcome this, in order to see off this Gillard government. In order to be rid of her and her woeful crew.
Name eighteen, no nineteen ALP policies you think are woeful AM or it’s a paddlin’ in the woodshed for you!
I myself, although incredibly good-looking, once patronized Tiffany’s and found it quite a mediocre establishment.
Looking back, I think I would have enjoyed it more if I had been a walking ATM like Craig Thomson and paid with the wages of some lowly peons.
You do realise the claim is that it was $5900 over 7 years ago don’t you?
Or are you deliberately confusing the millions alledged to have been taken by Michael Williamson AFTER Thomson left the union?
Rading back on the history of this union though I am astonished that it has a member still willing to be in it.
Jackson and her husband are amazing thugs who took all before them.
To David Black:
Did you breakfast on them, or they on you?
Frank (stick to film reviews) is banned for three months. Every time writes in before then he will get an extra week.
It is not useful to write in to a blog saying end this blog and expect to be published in it.
It gets fourteen to sixteen hundred hits a day.
What a hateful man.
Picturing the incredibly good-looking David Black.
Now which generation?
Olivier? Schofield? Mitchum? Brynner? Brando? Newman?
Beerbohm Tree.
Either Beerbohm Tree or Justin Bieber.
To dawsonb and frank : Thank you for your kind words. I have friends across the political spectrum, and it makes for some interesting debates!
I far rather prefer a rational debate with an intelligent Liberal (and I do know some) than with a boorish Labor supporter.
Bob loves the outrageous approach, and at times he is absolutely brilliant. If so, I will say so.
At other times, I may prefer to make no comment. Perhaps he takes a similar approach with me (?).
To those who seek to argue vituperatively with me, or with Bob, we don’t bully easily. Expect a tough time of it.
To Mr. Parody
There was ….ing in the rafters
There was ….ing in the ricks
You couldna hear the music
For the swishing of the ……
courtesy… Robbie?
I leave this note at the back of The Shed, where all the earnest/boring/self-important/hypocritical anti-Oz olivebranch-snapping/vitriolic/modern wowsers won’t see it.