Gerard Henderson, a sassy blonde, and a heartfelt plea for Barry O'Farrell to cross-dress and pose as Margaret Thatcher ...

(Above: a role model for Bazza O'Farrell, via a cartoon by Kevin Kallaugher for The Economist).

Time for a dose of prissy pomposity, laden with slipshod historical analysis on the pond, and how better to imbibe than by a stiff draught of Gerard Henderson, as he offers up Lesson for O'Farrell in Tories' uneasy power deal.

Here's an opening gambit, a flashy stroke which strokes the cherry ball to silly point in a thundering swipe at fashionable academics:

In some academic circles in Australia it is fashionable to blame the global financial crisis on what is termed neo-liberalism.

Re-phrased, I think what Henderson meant to say was that in some commentariat circles it is fashionable to lambast academic circles as a way of evading any mention of the push for deregulation during the Bush-Cheney years, which had more than a passing connection to the American-driven global financial crisis. Indeed some academics even concede that this form of financial ratbaggery owes more than a sniff to the neo-liberal loons who wandered through the Bush administration like a kind of infectious deregulatory financial cholera.

But clearly I fail to understand the deeper intuitions of the portentous prattling ersatz antipodean Polonius:

This overlooks the fact that if any political leader was at the core of the boom and bust cycle, it was the social democrat Brown. He became chancellor of the exchequer in 1997 and prime minister a decade later. Brown proclaimed the need for financial regulation with a light touch. And Brown presided over financial profligacy during a boom, which meant there was no surplus to spend when the downturn occurred.

Uh huh. How soon we forget that new Labor and Blair and Brown were the lap dogs of the Bush-Cheney clique, and as de-regulatory as any neo-liberal, in the fashion required of them by neo-liberals and the commentariat pack dogs looking for meaningful change.

If the "new" in new Labor meant anything, surely it meant subservience to Rome, and a supine determination to indulge in follies of a neo-liberal kind. And only today we finally learn that the "new" in neo-Labor is no more, as the "new" fades to a ragged, tatty coat.

As a result, change in Britain had to mean something different from more of the usual "bomb bomb bomb Iraq" (and Iran with a bit of luck) neo-liberal nonsense.

Unless it was a total accident that David Cameron decided to ride a bicycle and dress himself up as a kind of progressive, deeply wet conservative as an alternative path to power.

But say on soothsayer, explain the point of this prattling preamble, and in particular why the Tories didn't sweep all before them:

The current electoral boundaries in Britain do not favour the Tories. Even so, this was an election that Cameron should have won in his own right. The Conservative Party's essential failure was its inability to win seats from Labour in England, particularly London. Also Cameron and his advisers made the political task more difficult by agreeing to debate both Brown and Clegg. Without Clegg's fine performance in the first two debates, the Liberal Democrat vote probably would have been lower than it was and this may have resulted in an increase in the number of Tory victories. Cameron did not need to be so nice to his Liberal Democrat opponents.

How to deal with so many delusions and speculative what ifs and coulda beens in just one short paragraph? How to delve into utter twaddle of such a refined kind? How to marvel at the sublime proposal that Cameron should have acted like an utter twit and banned Clegg from the debates, and as a result the Tories would have rolled home? Thank the lord Cameron doesn't have Henderson as a political advisor, or according to our own speculative science, Labour would have rolled home in a sand storm ...

But stay, we've yet to understand the deep lesson to be learned from all this by Barry O'Farrell in his bid to upset the Labor party. Our prediction? Mr. Henderson believes that Mr. O'Farrell should stay off bicycles and swing deep into the heart of conservative ratbaggery. Instead of proposing to manage the state, in a way absent this past decade, he should offer up ratbag Liberal ideology. Instead of offering to fix things, he should clearly differentiate himself by storming off into the thickets of the Sydney Institute.

Oh yes, hand over the prize at once - a castle built out of icy pole sticks - as Henderson laboriously explains how the dream of Liberal rule might come to pass in the tortured state of NSW.

The first step is to conflate federal or national issues with state issues, and bang the terrorist drum:

The British electorate was never likely to warm to a Conservative leader equipped with what resembled a meaningless mission statement. On economic policy, Cameron decided not to square with the British electorate about the tough-minded policies necessary to solve Britain's economic discontents. And on issues of crime and terrorism, Labour's policies had more appeal in the electorate. This remains the case after the election. For example, the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition deal promises to water down the anti-terrorism legislation.

You know what that means Bazza. Get out and bang the crime drum. Mutter about the western suburbs, brood about crime and riots in Kings Cross. Propose a "three strikes and castration to follow" policy. Get down into the gutter and grub away. Appeal to the electorate and soon enough we can end up like the United States, with crime and prisons a major boost to the private sector and small country towns.

Hmm, what else? How about change?

In Britain the Conservatives found that Labour was deeply embedded in many of its traditional seats. The same applies in NSW. Since World War II the NSW Liberal Party has won only twice from opposition - Robin Askin in 1965 and Nick Greiner in 1988. Both presented themselves as agents of change. The flamboyant Askin was different from the Labor ascendancy. And Greiner was committed to economic reform.

Don't ya love it? The "flamboyant" Askin. Presumably that means Bazza that forthwith you must run over the bastards on the way to collecting your brown paper bag, because you too are in on the joke. Though this hardly seems a way to distinguish yourself from the developer infatuated ratbags currently running NSW Labor. But hey, Polonius sees it as the way forward ...

And Bazza, fair warning, unless you offer up a meaningless mantra of change, you could get taken down, never mind the opinion polls:

The opinion polls suggest Barry O'Farrell is heading for a comfortable victory. However, the sassy Kristina Keneally is popular. It may be that the NSW electorate is so tired of government by Labor mates that it will vote to change government irrespective of what the opposition has to offer. However, as Cameron has found out, the small-target strategy can backfire.

Sassy! The sassy blonde. Which is to say, if I retain any grasp on English, improperly forward or bold, perhaps saucy, impertinent, fresh, impudent, or a wise guy, forward in temperament or behaviour, lacking restraint or modesty.

Yep, Bazza, learn some decent sexist stereotypes if you want to woo the female vote away from this sassy, immodest saucy temptress. Get your message straight, as you veer hard right:

Over the past couple of years O'Farrell's message has not always been clear. In 2008 he declined to support Morris Iemma's attempt to privatise the NSW state-owned electricity generators. Here O'Farrell lined up with the Labor Left and Greens against the right-of-centre Iemma government. Politics aside, this was not good policy since this is the kind of reform that many would expect an O'Farrell government to make. Then last year the opposition effectively lined up with the Greens and the left-wing teachers' unions in supporting the imposition of fines on media outlets that published tables based on the school tests.

Oh dear Bazza, say it ain't so. Not the saucy greens and the sassy left-wing unions. You know if you lie down with these dogs, you get up with fleas, ticks, and Gerard Henderson murmuring in your ear about the joys of neo-liberalism. Or how government can be made easy by avoiding regulation, running a clear ideological line, and doing nothing to fix the state. After all, league tables to date have proven a boon to media outlets ...

But whatever you do Bazza, don't attempt a recourse to history, because that's Henderson's pet stomping ground:

Interviewed by John Hirst for the November 2008 edition of The Monthly, O'Farrell justified his privatisation decision with reference to the policies of the Liberal Party's founder, Robert Menzies. But one of the early acts of the Menzies government involved the privatisation of the Commonwealth Oil Refineries in the early 1950s.

Yep Bazza, you need a robust policy or three. How about offering to privatise the trams? What, NSW doesn't have any trams, thanks to the stout efforts of NSW Labor? Never mind, offer to privatise the trains and buses, in the way that Jeff Kennett privatised the trams in Victoria.

That worked out tremendously well for Victorians. What's that? Privatised tram and train company closes in Vic. Well I never, but at the same time Bazza, never let reality get in the way of ideology ... or a rant about history.

The Liberal Party's three most successful leaders - Menzies, Malcolm Fraser and John Howard - all won elections from opposition by staking out Liberal Party positions that were dramatically different from those of the incumbent Labor government at the time. Margaret Thatcher did much the same in Britain in 1979. Cameron took a different tack. While the Conservative Party only narrowly failed to achieve a majority of seats in the House of Commons, it still failed.

Yes Bazza, put on a dress and start acting like Margaret Thatcher, not like that bicycle riding David Cameron, the utter failure and twerp and wet Liberal Democrat fellow traveller. Act in a totally different way, and whatever you do offer at all times distinct, dramatic ideological differences of a right wing kind and never once mention the actual management of the state.

What point the parish pump when you can become a deluded imitator of Margaret Thatcher ...

It's much the same in NSW. The Liberals and Nationals will only succeed if they win a parliamentary majority. This is most likely to occur if O'Farrell clearly differentiates the policy differences between himself and Keneally.

Yes Bazza, the election is yours to win or lose, and if you clearly differentiate yourself from the sassy Keneally, by turning yourself into a right wing ideologue in the Thatcher style, as proposed by Gerard Henderson, you could lose the unlosable election.

Listen to the prattling Polonius, get into that Margaret dress, drink deep of the poisoned chalice while in the heat of the fencing match, and you too could end up sprawled dead behind the arras.

What NSW wants right at this moment is not trains that run on time, half-way decent roads, better hospitals, and useful schooling, but an ideological war with the sassy blonde ... Yeah, that should fix it, that should fix it good.

Ho hum, it's another day in Sydney NSW, the weather is bleak, the rain of a steady drenching kind, and the sand seems to be rushing at speed through the hour glass clocking the days of our lives ...

But you can always rely on Gerard Henderson for a laugh. Margaret Thatcher as the way into the hearts and minds of NSW voters. And we thought we were the delusional ones, here on the pond ...

(Below: the "flamboyant" Robert Askin on the far right, and on the left Joe Taylor, operator of Sydney's Thommo's two-up school.

A tip for Bazza arising from the snap. Become more "flamboyant", and change your name by need poll if you don't like it, just as Robin became Robin before running the bastards over. Come to think of it, why not make Bazza O'Farrell your official call sign? And turn up at the Cross more regularly, not to clean it up, but to join in the brown paper bag hunt organised by the right of the NSW Labor party. Now that's ideology doing the hard yards).