I like the intention cs, but I’m not sure it’s effective. Menzies for most people under 40 has about as much cultural resonance as Montgomery Clift. It might play well with the older businessmen, but that generation is just about to retire, while the rest of them will largely remember their best economic times as being under the Howard government. As a way of calming the horses, I think it’s limited.

The new prince is a far better politician than me, so I would decline the opportunity to make a fool of myself by giving him advice. At the most, I would make private notes in the way of play, merely to see how closely I could anticipate him. Relecting off Geoff’s comment, I would, perhaps, note that all those who rush to compare the new leader with the old are friendly forces, comforting those citizens who dislike change. These commentators are therefore to be ignored, beyond a private smile. On the other hand, those who have merely got on board because they detest the old leader are a tricky lot to manage. The old leader will constantly seek to project the new leader in the image of the most popularly detested among them, thus marking the newcomer out as being different from himself as is possible to imagine. The caravan of convenience behind the new leader will always be vulnerable to this flattery from their detested enemy, as it promotes their public status. The caravan is therefore to held at a safe distance, so the new leader always remains free to publicly cut their heads off as necessary. It is therefore crucial, I suppose, for the new leader to win popular appeal well beyond the caravan and its followers.

Its a strange position to be taking (Menzies wouldnt be allowed in the modern Liberal party) as if re-casting a conservative prime minister as some kind of bastion of small-l liberal values will have any effect on the behaviour of modern Liberals or the voting intentions of a population who can barely remember Keating and Hawke.

Hardly. The division between conservatives and liberals on the right side of politics is always worth ploughing at gatherings of business leaders (as distinct from gatherings of people “who can barely remember Keating and Hawke”), which was where Gillard was, and especially when the topic is industrial relations, as it was. “You can support our policy” said Gillard effectively, “even if you usually support the LNP, provided you support the liberal ideals of the party. The approach flatters businessmen, who usually don’t know about anything except commerce but like to imagine themselves enlightened.

How many chords has the Gillard/Menzies business actually struck? I assumed they tried it on because earlier incarnations of Howard appeared to venerate “I did but see her passing by” sentiments. It’s a strange position to be taking (Menzies wouldn’t be allowed in the modern Liberal party) as if re-casting a conservative prime minister as some kind of bastion of small-l liberal values will have any effect on the behaviour of modern Liberals or the voting intentions of a population who can barely remember Keating and Hawke.

“…we shall find that it is easier for the prince to make friends of those men who were contented under the former government, and are therefore his enemies, than of those who, being discontented with it, were favourable to him and encouraged him to seize it.”
http://whitewolf.newcastle.edu.au/words/authors/M/MachiavelliNiccolo/prose/ThePrince/theprince020.html

So your advice to the new prince would be…?

Yet I am also reminded of an old adage. The new leader, it was once frequently said, easily wins the friendship of those who were satisfied with the existing government, and were only hostile because he was the leader of the opposition; far more troublesome are those who were dissatisfied with the existing government and only became his friend because he was the leader of the opposition.

Re the earlier, there is a serious qualitative difference between Gillard/Menzies and Abbott/Hunter. The former makes the the debatable point about what happened to the liberal in the Liberal Party; the latter is a cheap hypocritical pose, perhaps akin to the anti-fun priest borrowing a leather jacket for the school dance.

I think it’s high old time that Australia changed government and Rudd represents the best chance of doing that. But Hunter S Thonpson’s take on Therese Rein would have been gold.

The story quoted then was Stevenson’s response to a complaint against him that he was an egghead. It was, “Eggheads of the world unite! You have nothing to lose but your yolks!” According to legend it wasn’t all that well received.

Although Abbott’s got it backwards, the Hunter S Thompson reference was interesting. I’ve long been thinking about Howard’s time and legacy as it (hopefully) moves to its end. The closest comparison I can make is to Nixon. He has exploited Fear and Loathing superbly (or disastrously if you care about appealing to the better instincts of people). I think that like Nixon he is a manipulator, caring little for anything except re-election. Hence he never gives pause to the slightest regret about the Iraq disaster.

He sees almost everything in terms of combat with Labor. Hence the hubristic overkill with Workchoices. He was thinking that if he can destroy the unions base, he can stuff Labor. The uranium response belatedly to global warming can also be seen in those terms. There have been allegations of closed-door dealings with mining magnates (which may well have occurred), but I’m sure the guiding factor was that this will divide Labor as The Republic divided the Liberals.

Again he misjudged it as a positive climate change response. And as with Workchoices, he underestimated other factors such as NIMBY on power stations. It’s a can of worms.

The only difference I can see is that Nixon did actually attempt to do some good in foreign matters such as China and disarmament. Howard’s main positive legacy, and not to be sneezed at, was his attempts at firearms control. But it was very early in his reign.

Effing reckon. Not sure anyone can “gently grasp the teasing inchoate trends of the greater mind”. Bloody hell! (Heh).

Er . . . Abbott’s a twat.

I suspect Abbott quoting Hunter S. Thompson is something like Gillard accusing the liberals of not understanding Menzies – it’s little more than a bit of a gee-up and just as ineffective.

And no wonder the temptation to go to the lowest common denominator in the country is so strong so to ensure a majority. There is no end to the measure of the mass misconceptions in the wider public, these words like all others, included, for we each see the world incompletely in our own way. It is a rare leader as we know who can gently grasp the teasing inchoate trends of the greater mind and weave them into an actual national narrative, and not upset the bunched up, knotted up, mindstuff below. Far easier to toss a salve to the lower bit and watch it suck it up not with gratitude as is this bit’s wont but with hungry expectancy, it slurping and sloughing around and stuffing its face, not so that it may grow and see the world from a loftier height, but so that its arms don’t get tired clinging to itself.

But what if you don’t toss a salve, and toss something inspiring instead?

Go the majority, an amazing concept, if not a real thing.

And the thinking person’s vote is itself a ripper – I have a friend who is very much in that group, whose mind has been focused elsewhere of politics, who asked not two months ago “Is John Howard Labor or Liberal?”. Shocking, but indicative of something how common?