Janet Albrechtsen, the UN world government conspiracy, Chairman Rudd, and a Liberal party dedicated to all pain, no gain ...

(Above: 'tis the season to be nostalgic. Remember the good old days?)

The art of gotcha coming and going is particular and specialized and requires an unerring ability to forget what you've written the week or the month before.

Here's Janet Albrechtsen writing before Copenhagen about the implications of Copenhagen in Beware the UN's Copenhagen plot:

Shame on us all: on us in the media and on our politicians. Despite thousands of news reports, interviews, analyses, critiques and commentaries from journalists, what has the inquiring, intellectually sceptical media told us about the potential details of a Copenhagen treaty? And despite countless speeches, addresses, interviews, doorstops, moralising sermons from government ministers, pleas from Canberra for an outcome at Copenhagen, opposition criticism of government policy, what have our elected representatives told us about the potential details of a Copenhagen treaty?

But wait, she's only just starting to warm up for a bout of hysterical fear mongering, relying on - of all people - that prime conspiratorial 'world government is upon us' gherkin Christopher Monckton:

Emails started arriving telling me about a speech given by Christopher Monckton, a former adviser to Margaret Thatcher, at Bethel University in St Paul, Minnesota, on October 14. Monckton talked about something that no one has talked about in the lead-up to Copenhagen: the text of the draft Copenhagen treaty.

Even after Monckton’s speech, most of the media has duly ignored the substance of what he said. You don’t need me to find his St Paul address on YouTube. Interviewed on Monday morning by Alan Jones on Sydney radio station 2GB, Monckton warned that the aim of the Copenhagen draft treaty was to set up a transnational government on a scale the world has never before seen. Listening to the interview, my teenage daughters asked me whether this was true.

Roll that one around on your tongue, and see if you don't burst out laughing. The aim is to set up a transnational government on a scale the world has never seen before. And what do we do tomorrow Brain? The same as always Pinkie, find ways to take over the world.

Hang on, hang on, Albrechtsen is serious:

So I read the draft treaty. The word government appears on page 18. Monckton says: “This is the first time I’ve ever seen any transnational treaty referring to a new body to be set up under that treaty as a government. But it’s the powers that are going to be given to this entirely unelected government that are so frightening.”

Frightening? Oh don't look under the bed, that's where they hide the monster, who comes out on Christmas eve, and eats children.

Monckton became aware of the extraordinary powers to be vested in this new world government only when a friend of his found an obscure UN website and hacked his way through several layers of complications before coming across a document that isn’t even called the draft treaty. It’s called a “note by the secretariat”. The moment he saw it, he went public and said: “Look, this is an outrage ... they have kept the sheer scope of this treaty quiet.”

Monckton says the aim of this new government is to have power to directly intervene in the financial, economic, tax and environmental affairs of all the nations that sign the Copenhagen treaty.

On and on with the fear mongering and the talk of power grabbing and sundry other bits of hysterical nonsense.

Post Copenhagen, and the failure of the world government conspiracy, here's Albrechtsen in Rudd is all talk and no voter pain:

Happily for Rudd, the pattern was repeated at the UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen last week. Nothing of substance happened in the Danish capital. This is what happens at most UN gabfests. Talk and grandstanding from leaders looking for photo opportunities to send back home. Then, when the real work starts, each country pursues its national interest.

The result is no agreement and no great surprise. Copenhagen was always going to get bogged down in precisely the way it did.

Nothing happened at a gabfest, as is always the case with UN gabfests?

But, but, but what happened to that international government conspiracy and Lord Monckton? Dissolved in the suds of a gabfest, and washed whiter than white by grandstanding leaders looking after national interests. Oh no, say it ain't so Pinkie, we'll need to think of another way to take over the world. Whatever you say Brain.

Of course it was just more of the kind of gotcha blather that Albrechtsen specialises in. Peddle a conspiracy theory when it suits, peddle cynical disdain about the ineptness of the UN when that suits better.

Funnily enough it's the very thing she accuses Chairman Rudd of: a quest for opportunistic benefits.

You see, the new Albrechtsen argument is that Chairman Rudd doesn't want his ETS to happen, and wants instead to be able to blame the perfidious opposition, and grandstand on climate change on the way to the next election, without inflicting any financial pain on voters. Isn't that Tony Abbott's plan too?

Albrechtsen has been constant and consistent in insisting that climate change is just another conspiracy, peddled by scientists, in much the same way as her conspiracy spotting hero Lord Monckton.

Shouldn't she be jumping for joy that Chairman Rudd isn't taking any action? Because she's all for no pain, and plenty of gain?

Of course not. But how about the absurd pre-Copenhagen attacks on Chairman Rudd for his world ambitions, as if the leader of 21 million people, the largest per capital polluter going around, would see Australia and its strutting leader front and centre on the world stage.

After the reality kicked in at Copenhagen - where India, the United States, China, and Africa, and even vocal smaller countries dominated proceedings - the desire to keep up with that particular charade is irresistible:

As a "friend of the chair" at the climate change conference, Rudd was able to feed his UN-sized ego on the world stage without making any hard political decisions that would affect his home constituency. Here, in a nutshell, is Rudd's political nirvana. He can continue a prime ministership based on rhetorical flourishes and symbolism without inflicting any pain on voters.

Ah ain't it grand, the good old UN-sized ego, that only a little while ago was part of a giant UN-sized conspiracy to rule the world. And still it seems he's slated for the position of the UN Secretary General, as if the rest of the world can't wait to have Chairman Rudd in the chair.

You know, when Albrechtsen writes about federal politics, it would be a lot simpler if she simply wrote "I hate Chairman Rudd, and please don't vote for him at the next election".

Instead she always has to do some kind of three witches routine, straight out of Macbeth, pointing a bony finger at the lad:

Rudd is a smart politician. He has no power base or natural support within the Labor Party. His leadership hinges on poll results and nothing else. The moment those numbers dip, he is on shaky ground within his own party. Accordingly, he has refused to do anything that will upset the voters until the next election. Another win will secure his position for a while longer, but not much longer. Even with his no-pain strategy, Rudd will inevitably have to confront the growing push for Gillard to become prime minister. When that kicks in, Rudd risks leaving a legacy of having done as little as possible for as long as possible.

Oh how she hates him. Why it makes me chortle with glee.

Come to think of it, the best, perhaps the only reason to keep Chairman Rudd around is to see the frenzy he arouses in our favourite commentariat columnists. It's a bit like throwing a burley of blood and bone into a pool of sharks whipped up into a frenzy by SPECTRE itself. Invariably they find themselves disagreeing with something that ate them.

Well roll on Gillard. Let's see a woman in the top job - even if it means, according to the inviolable law of this site that at the following election the party the woman leads will plunge to electoral defeat - so that the commentariat columnists have an even bigger reason to be unhappy, and be able to lather up wild-eyed talk of world conspiracies which strangely never transpire ...

Here's betting Julia Gillard will turn out to have a giant sized UN ego, and be part of the devious UN plan to instal a world government. And no doubt fly about in black helicopters.

Oh what's that you say? The absurd hypocrisy of attacking Chairman Rudd for relying on no pain and all gain, when the same commentariat columnists cheer on Tony Abbott about climate change and his policy of no pain and all gain? As he assures us all we can respond to climate change without it costing anyone a cent, or hurting the economy in any way?

Don't be a silly billy.

That'd mean a commentariat columnist would have to offer up reasoned insights rather than paranoid conspiracy theories and ranting hate fests.

But the no pain, all gain thesis does lead to one delicious insight:

... John Howard restructured the workforce to deliver gains to workers and the wider economy. Alas, his government's Work Choices overstepped the pain barrier, which led to the Coalition's ousting.

Say what? Sob, remember the good old days, when all gain and no pain was an important part of the Albrechtsen thesis?

Sure economic growth was at healthy highs, but in a grand 'et tu Brute' moment, she told Howard it was time to hang up the pads, and Pass baton to Costello:

This is one of the hardest columns I will write. John Howard has been the finest prime minister Australia has had. He has overseen extraordinary economic success, created the conditions for a whole new class of aspirational Australians to prosper from the inevitable forces of globalisation, confronted the scourge of terrorism and has fundamentally realigned the political landscape in this country on so many fronts.

Under Howard it became cool to be a conservative. He rebuilt a political philosophy of individual responsibility for a new generation. His legacy is profound. From workplace reform to welfare to indigenous politics, to our sense of national identity, Howard has changed the nation in a way very few leaders ever do. Each step rankled his opponents as they clung to old orthodoxies. Yet Howard, through sheer dint of character and intellectual fortitude, prevailed.

But now he must go.

It’s not easy saying that. The economic numbers certainly do not warrant it. All the numbers are in the right direction. Unemployment at historic lows.

Economic growth at healthy highs. Neither does Howard’s character warrant it. He has been a leader in the true sense of the word. He has tapped into what the community thinks in a way his predecessor Paul Keating never did. He has overseen a period of unity within the federal Liberal Party that has enabled the Howard Government to win election after election. Every time he was written off, Howard fought back. But after 11 glorious years, this time the bad polls are pointing to something altogether different.

See any mention of Workchoices? How about a cynical preference for poll driven, all gain and no pain thinking? You know, I think we should remember that it was Janet Albrechtsen's column that led to John Howard's ousting - well if you want a conspiracy theory, isn't that as good as the next one?

With friends like that, no need to cultivate enemies. Do everything right, and still the polls say you're wrong, and so down you must go.

No wonder Albrechtsen scans the polls each day in a fever, seeking for the first signs, the first canker in the entrails, the disease in the liver that will foretell the demise of Chairman Rudd, and she'll write anything to bring that day forward. Never mind the policies, feel the width and length of the poll numbers.

Reasoned rational discourse on policies and future directions for the country? If you want that sort of stuff, get out of the shark tank before Albrechtsen eats you alive ...

(Below: Janet Albrechtsen and a James Bond shark. Despite the scribbling herein, there is of course no similarity).