A lacklustre campaign, a complacent leader, and a ruthless opposition have not just clipped Malcolm Turnbull’s wings, but ripped them off.
Malcolm Turnbull has run a “safety first” campaign – and is expected to win.
Plus: Why Chilcot won’t change anybody’s mind. A deliberate snub from Downing Street. And: Why hasn’t the Daily Mail replaced James Chapman yet?
Plus: The Australian Liberals should have gone for Julie Bishop. Joe Pike’s Project Fear. And: Who’s afraid of the Big Bad Cyber Corbynistas?
He will be treated more kindly by history than by his contemporaries or the opinion polls – having begun to repair a Budget destroyed by Labor profligacy.
Australia is now on its fifth Prime Minister in five years. And the narrowness of the Liberal Party’s vote does not bode well.
The right-wing British commentators who claim otherwise are wide of the mark.
It’s a modern form of One Nation Conservatism. Harold Macmillan would have liked it.
The Australian Prime Minister survived a rebellion last night – but now his relationship with his colleagues is fundamentally altered.
A combination of sudden measures to fix the economy, bad party management, poor timing, Senate opposition and the spill system have put Tony Abbott in danger.
His critique of the teaching of politics is a simple one. In his view, it is not a mode of experience. So the language of politics is not genuinely a language of explanation.
Carole Mills is tangled up in a burqa ban – and a Select Committee report that it was misled about her knowledge of an Australian parliamentary controversy.
But the Conservatives need fundamental change.
Bill English, his successor, worked co-operatively with him and Wayne Eagleson. There’s a lesson here for Nick Timothy and Fiona Hill.