Gerard Henderson, big Mal, big Julie and the wretched latte sipping idealistic press gallery ...

(Above: the sordid truth about the press gallery).

After Gerard Henderson's sterling, impeccable advice to Malcolm Turnbull last week - stay retired big Mal, you're party doesn't need you - under the prescient header Stick to your guns, Malcolm, the party doesn't need you - we wondered what pearls of wisdom the prattling Polonius might manage this week.

After all, within days of hitting the presses, and barely before the seagulls had tromped all over the Henderson ink in search of left-over fish and chips, big Mal had reversed his decision, and next thing you know Chairman Rudd's popularity in the polls had dropped like a lead sinker in search of a Murray cod ... which instead cops a bony carp for its pains.

Perhaps Hendo - we like to think of Henderson as Hendo sometimes, since he cares so much for the battlers of Penrith and hates the inner west eastern suburbs chattering elite - the good digger Hendo might suggest to Tony Abbott that he barely seems to mention "great big new tax" enough, and repetitive braying like a donkey imitating a cockatoo will be a certain way to keep big Mal's eye off the the golden chalice and the throne.

Perhaps he might suggest to jolly Joe Hockey that talk that appeals to the lower north shore about anti-terrorism legislation and the internet filter is simply a waste of time if he wants to beguile the punters in Penrith. You know, on the principle that political expediency and a complete lack of principled talk or logical positions is anathema to achieving power. Oh wait, he did that while telling big Mal to stay sulking in his eastern suburbs garrett.

Sadly, after having stuck his neck up above the parapet, clearly our very own Polonius has decided he needs to retreat behind the arras. Even if that might lead to tears:

HAMLET: [Drawing] How now! a rat? Dead, for a ducat, dead!

Makes a pass through the arras

LORD POLONIUS: [Behind] O, I am slain!
Falls and dies

QUEEN GERTRUDE: O me, what hast thou done?

HAMLET: Nay, I know not:
Is it the king?

QUEEN GERTRUDE: O, what a rash and bloody deed is this!

HAMLET: A bloody deed! almost as bad, good mother,
As kill a king, and marry with his brother.

Or almost as bad as telling big Mal to stay buggered off just as he returns to the castle triumphant, if in a mute, modest way, and with an election still to face before he can realise his dream of becoming Lazarus with a double bypass.

But hang on, we haven't even touched on the latest Hendo whitterings, which you can find in Admirers suffer a Rudd awakening.

With a pun like that as a header, you can see why Hendo sees himself as a match for Shakespeare when scribbling on political and country matters.

This week, it seems the lefties in the press have done a turn, and that's why Chairman Rudd's poll numbers are down.

It seems Kevin Rudd has become a significant disappointment to many members of the parliamentary press gallery. Quite a few environmentally conscious journalists agreed with the Prime Minister that human-induced climate change was the greatest moral challenge of our time - and they expected him to put Australia in the front line of those nations wanting to take action to save the planet.

Oh you significantly disappointed lefties in the press gallery, we know you run the country in your own latte sipping, environmentally conscious way, but look at what you've done!

Not only has Chairman Rudd failed on an ETS, he's failed on tax reform, and he's failed to call a double dissolution, which since the fuss over the Melbourne Storm has slowly died away, means newspapers will continue losing circulation!

All this is eminently satisfactory to our éminence grise, not just because Rudd acted sensibly on the double dissolution matter and the ETS and taxation reform (or so Hendo says), but because in the process he clearly shafted the pundits and the commentators expecting widescale reform.

Take that you gherkins in the press gallery. Yep, Chairman Rudd's dissembling is wise, forthright, and Hendo approved. Which inexplicably has led to a sharp drop in the Ruddster's poll numbers. Oh you deviant fickle press gallery types, frumiously fuming at the chairman as he follows Hendo's sage advice. We know the polls you run are famously conducted amongst yourselves and never represent the opinions of the people of Penrith ... or Hendo ...

And it wouldn't be a Hendo column if once again we didn't have a little trawl through history:

It is too early to judge the Rudd government. Yet it is fair to say in its first term, Rudd Labor has not matched the reform determination of the governments led by Hawke, Keating and John Howard.

You see, all those busy commentators busy judging the Rudd government ... it's too early! Never mind that there's an election upon us and soon we must all judge the Rudd government by way of a vote.

But at least we got in a mention of John Howard. Ah remember the good old days when you could get five or mentions of John Howard in a single Hendo column, enough to mount a decent betting competition.

But stay, what's this? It seems that there has been one outstanding reform, managed by Julia Gillard, thanks to a simple informative website which has discovered - astonishing news - that well heeled private schools get better educational results than derelict public schools catering to students trapped in a mire of poverty. Talk about a revolution ...

Her agenda is in the tradition of the historic concern by social democrats for the education of children from low socio-economic groups. If Gillard prevails, this will be the most significant reform of Rudd's inaugural term.

Yep, which is why the Rudd government keeps shovelling cash down the throat of the well heeled private schools. As we like to say in the United States, go mules ... go muckers ... go hornets ... go revolution ...

But then an ominous thought came to me. If Julia Gillard gets an approving nod from Hendo, and on this basis, mounts an attack on Chairman Rudd for the throne, how will it go?

Perhaps as well as Hendo's splendid advice to big Mal?

Who knows, but I was suddenly dragged in to a time warp, and reminded of Wayne and Schuster's terrible radio show Rinse the blood off my toga, which amazingly you can find transcribed on the full to overflowing intertubes:

Calpurnia: ... If I told him once, I told him a thousand times, "Don't go, Julie!" I said. "It's the Ides of March, beware already. Don't go, Julie, don't Go.

Watch out big Julie. Tread carefully. Remember big Mal. Bide your time until after the election.

And that is that. Another slaying of journalists, another blow for conservative inaction, and a job well done by our prattling Polonius as he endorses Chairman Rudd's inactivity. Surely the surest sign that Chairman Rudd is in fact doomed.

If you have Hendo offering sage advice that approves of your actions, you're on the slippery slide, if not down the tube ...

Meanwhile, as the ABC relentlessly noted this fourth of May, it's Star Wars day, so may the fourth be with you.

(Below: this site assumes no responsibility for the mental health of anyone foolish enough to click on this video, even if done in the spirit of an ethnographic study of the direness of American humour back in the days when the radio and the phonogram ruled the world).