Gerard Henderson, prattling Polonius strikes again, and how to smuggle the budgies for the benefit of French dressing ...

(Above: classical neanderthals in classical poses with classic weaponry).

Let's cut to the chase, and the score this week in Gerard Henderson's Doomsday prophecies exposed as mere fantasies of the left. (No, he's not talking about climate change).

First mention of John Howard in the column: last par

Number of mentions of John Howard in the column: 1

What a shocker, what a blinder from left field. It's the most disconcerting, perverse result in months of contemplating our prattling Polonius, and suggests a momentous shift in the political landscape, as that troglodyte Tony Abbott comes into his ascendancy.

Oh dear, I probably shouldn't have used that word. Sure the more liberal wing of the Liberal party refers internally to its more conservative members as Neanderthals, but that's by way of a family joke. Nick Minchin isn't an ancient caveman of an uncivilized kind. He's from Adelaide, which of course has a much more regressive set of social structures in play. They don't club you to death, they peck you ...

By the way, I'm indebted to Malcolm Farr for If Joe wins, he loses and caves in to Neanderthals, writing as he does for that deeply left wing tabloid the Daily Telegraph:

Taking the leadership would also almost certainly mean making a compromise in his views on the need for an ETS - and a surrender to people who some around Hockey refer to as “the Neanderthals” - and in his support for Turnbull.

Yep, just a jolly hockey stick jape amongst chums. You know, Nick Minchin, the old neanderthal from around Adelaide way.

Now first we have to sort something. Is using the term neanderthal the same as using the word troglodyte? After all, troggie can mean a hermit who lives in seclusion, or a group of cliff dwellers, or the Troglodytae, an ancient group from the African red sea coast, or a fictional tribe in Montesquieu's Persian Letters, or even a race of humanoid monsters in the game Dungeons & Dragons.

But a primary meaning is for a caveman, a member of a primitive race or tribe of cave-dwellers. And it seems fair to think of some neanderthals as cave dwellers - there's an argument that the Neanderthals made their last stand at Gorham's Cave in Gibraltar.

Which is a long way around to establish that the Pecksniffian Henderson is being his usual silly old goose with his nose in the air, honking away as he berates left wing academics for using the harmless term to describe Tony Abbott and his Minchinite supporters:

Manne also made his position clear on the Liberals, referring to the party's "troglodyte-denialist wing" and Abbott as the "troglodyte-in-chief". Such language seems acceptable in the La Trobe University politics department.

Oh dear. Acceptable in the political games played by the Liberal party, but not acceptable in politics departments.

Oh dear. Should I have called Henderson a goose? Or perhaps just a member of the subfamily Anserinae, tribe Anserini to prove my academic credentials? (here for the good word on goose).

But then Henderson goes on such an extended fainting fit, such a Victorian case of the vapors, that I'm reminded of great aunt Nelly's need for a rum and milk on boisterous family occasions.

First he despatches silly old goose Malcolm Mackerras to the boundary, but even Henderson has to admit Malcolm's prediction of a Greens win in Higgins is just an amiable full toss, requiring a hoick to the boundary.

Then he gets agitated by a bizarre Robert Manne backing his friend Clive Hamilton for Higgins, and fantasising about the destruction of the Liberal party, and then he gets upset about Judith Brett suggesting Liberals risk becoming a down-market protest party of angry old men in the outer suburbs.

One can imagine Henderson drawing himself up to his full height to announce in angry tones that he's not angry, he's not down-market, he's not old, and he's not from the outer suburbs.

Indeed, and his hearty sniffing out produces even more recalcitrant left wingers lurking in the academy, and trying Henderson's patience.

One has the cheek to suggest that Abbott's leadership will need emotional intelligence, a quality in short supply in the Liberal party in recent times. (Yes Brian Costar from Swinburne, so called professor of political science, we know who you are).

Why it's as plain as the nose on Pinocchio that the Liberal party is saturated with emotional intelligence, and it has been full to overflowing with it in recent times.

Naturally our pious Polonius gets terribly upset at the way Tony Abbott's Catholicism has been made an unfair target, when the dear sweet lad has always swept it under the carpet, and never used it as a ploy in his political games (yes Bernard Keane, we know who you are, you and your Abbott's Catholicism is fair game).

Henderson contrasts this with the free kick that Robert Manne gives Chairman Rudd's religious convictions in relation to German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer:

The views of Rudd and Abbott on social issues are not far apart. Yet it seems, according to Manne, Rudd's religious convictions are acceptable while Abbott's are not.

Dearie me, perhaps Manne should read Michael Epis's Rudd's hero, the people smuggler, in which Dietrich Bonhoeffer is used to soundly cuff Chairman Rudd around the head:

He (Rudd) wrote also that ''a core, continuing principle ... should be that Christianity, consistent with Bonhoeffer's critique in the 30s, must always take the side of the marginalised, the vulnerable and the oppressed''. Rudd needs to get back in touch with his principles and knock off the politics. His current actions betray not only his own principles, but the people who put him in power. On this topic he is failing as a politician and as a Christian.

Well it's bad enough talking about Christianity in an unseemly way - we always prefer a pox on all religious houses - when the next thing you know, sex has raised its ugly head:

Come to think of it, the fantasy surrounding last Saturday's byelections has not been confined to academics. This year, the Radio National program Breakfast has been giving publicity to Fiona Patten's new Australian Sex Party. As recently as last Friday it was suggested on Breakfast that the party could win a seat in the Senate. Not on Saturday's vote it couldn't. Patten scored 3.3 per cent of the primary vote, finishing behind the Democratic Labor Party candidate John Mulholland. This is a breakaway from the original DLP, which was formally wound up three decades ago.

Oh no, sex finishes behind. Or should I say last?

Take that you deluded lot of licentious perverts and fantasists at Radio National. There's no room for sex on the political agenda, it's best kept in a missionary position in the bedroom, behind the likes of the DLP. How foolish to give oxygen to a new party with sex in its title, how deluded, how unfortunate.

And how naughty and wretched of Malcolm to criticise the new leader, in much the same way as Malcolm took down Nelson and Nick took down Malcolm. It's not so much a game of follow the leader as of degut the leader:

Turnbull's announcement that he would cross the floor and support Labor's emissions trading scheme is a blow to the Coalition. But it does not overturn the fact that, based on last week's Liberal Party secret ballot, 75 per cent of Coalition parliamentarians support Abbott's approach on climate change.

Oh great, that makes it so much better, to know that everyone now is a luddite, a troglodyte, a neanderthal, or a what you will, falling in behind shadow puppetmaster Chairman Nick.

Sure the science and the non-policy behind it might be as stupid and long lasting and meaningful as a snowball in hell, but if seventy five per cent of the clowns line up behind the Minchinite clowns, then all's well with the world. That puts mad uncle Wilson "Ironbar" Tuckey at the forefront of science!

How naughty of Malcolm to suggest the new emperor might be in want of clothes or a few costings (Time for some straight talking on climate change).

Well who will the Liberal party pitch its hat at, seek to lure into the broad tent, invite into the ever widening cave of a pious church? You know, to show it's now and trendy and relevant.

Why those battlers from the back blocks, who've never heard of a latte and will spit a chardonnay in your face sooner than drink it, who only shop at Chadstone shopping mall, or similar - Marion is excellent for SA based Nick Minchinites - and who will now make up Abbott's army:

The Liberal vote at the weekend indicates that Abbott is capable of at least stabilising the Coalition vote at the level of the 2007 election and perhaps increasing it somewhat. Moreover, Abbott's approach may attract support among the lower socio-economic groups who elected Robert Menzies in 1949, Fraser in 1975 and John Howard in 1996. This is a fact that the left-of-centre academy has invariably been slow to appreciate.

Yes you academic snobs, with all your talk of the workers, when really it's the Liberals who love the workers. Yes they do, because they make up such a flexible part of the production cycle, especially when they can be put on a decent short term contract and screwed to the floor in ways the Australian Sex Party can only dream about.

Meanwhile, astute gamblers will note that with this mention of John Howard and his battlers, we have come to the final para of Henderson's pique, in what is really just a fit of pique of a Glenn Milne kind (A sign that Libs have got it right).

Well I'm glad we've all hunkered down in the cave with the neanderthals, because if Nick and his minions have got it wrong, a nice dry cave somewhere high up in the hills might be the very best place in which to act out my survivalist fantasies.

I have the weapons, I have the means, I have the desire, now let's lock and load ...

Troglodytes, neanderthals, forward march ... and remember, only goose stepping allowed ...

(Below: artist's impression of a troglodyte, with handy cave dwelling and games to play).