Strewth, Them Libs is a Class Act

With each passing year I am more and more deeply shamed by the knowledge that once, a long time ago now, I was a fully paid up member of the Liberal Party (Victoria Division).

What was I thinking? Well I certainly wasn't thinking that I was contributing to a political machine that would one day foist on a frighteningly complacent and compliant nation the likes of John Howard, Peter Costello, Tony Abbott, Alexander Downer, That Woman who was once the Minister for Sending Eight Months Pregnant Women to China for Forced Abortions* and the remainder of the sorry horde.

Back in those days Costello was part of a double act that also included Andrew Peacock's son-in-law which was primarily seen as being engaged in a fight to bring the party into the twentieth century and out of the stultifying grasp of a gerontocracy - though Costello came to that particular knees-up via a relationship with organised labour hating HR Nicholls society leadership. This was a distasteful coalition of vested interests and fundamentalist irrationalists who want the rest of us to believe that meaningful wage negotiations can take place between say, for instance, a national (or international) retail business and an individual check out or shop floor worker. Hm.

Now he's playing second fiddle to someone else. Difficult as it is to credit Little John with anything it must be said that he picked a good-un when searching for a stooge; Costello came to the job with years of practice.

Well I've repented. Whatever they might be they're not liberal. They're no better morally than any other clutch of politicians. In other words they're self-serving social misfits, border-line psychopathic hypocrites.

But by crikey they know how to fight ... just like cornered rats.

"AMID an escalating brawl over political mud-slinging in the countdown to the election, the latest smear on a Liberal figure has been traced to his own party. Claims that a married federal minister visits gay bathhouses and sexually harasses other men in political circles surfaced yesterday in News Limited papers...

"Mr Howard was incensed by suggestions of foul play. "We have not engaged in smears, and I am just not going to accept that we have," he said. "The Labor Party last week was given an opportunity to substantiate a claim that we had and they failed completely."

Howard asserts that the party hasn't 'engaged in smears' which is perfectly true provided he doesn't consider what's gone on here as engaging in smears. So he's covered his back neatly, but just to be on the safe side he's gone on to disassociate himself personally with a superlatively playground-type line of argument which goes perfectly with a side-salad of "I'm not listening; la la la la la la la."

* This is Amanda Vanstone, but I couldn't remember her name last night.