Gerard Henderson, and a new rule about news and the chattering class 24/7 ...

(Above: yes, this piece actually contains a new rule, way down below).

Well it seems we were wrong, and that Mark Day has left Chairman Rupert's stables, headed over to the ABC, and under the pseudonym Jonathan Holmes, is now gainfully employed ravaging the ABC's coverage of the downfall of former Chairman Rudd in this week's Media Watch.

It was such a fierce and funny demolition job, and so full of praise for Sky's coverage, that we felt a minor tremble of alarm at the future of this happy gadfly beavering away in Aunty's soft underbelly.

There's just one thing we worry about in Jonathon Holmes' perspective, apart from the way he ignored the intertubes as a way of breaking news (once we heard the ABC's scoop, we dipped at our leisure in to updates every now and then, as needed on the intertubes - it's called the four play, any news at any time anywhere on any device - and let me say there weren't too many times it was needed).

Holmes, you see, thinks every station and broadcaster should have dropped everything and rushed around Chicken Little style announcing that the sky was falling, the king was dead, the queen was threatening, and tracking every little bit of news of the plot, giving us that peculiar notion of relentless 24/7 news coverage ... as promised by the ABC's new news channel, which plans to emulate all that's awful about pay-TV, such as Sky News.

In the good old days, before the telegraph connected Australia to the world, the news would arrive slowly by ship that the king was dead, long live the king, and people would go about their lives.

Ceaselessly watching the doings of Canberra is surely bad for your health. The only meaningful news on the night in question was that Chairman Rudd would be challenged the next day, and odds on he'd be dead as a forlorn duck. Sure there were the faceless men who done it to expose, but after they were exposed, they went on being faceless men, so the exposure wasn't that useful. (I've always thought of Bill Shorten as faceless).

The point about relentless 24/7 news is that it needs its regular dramas to sustain itself, and soon enough you end up with the hysteria of Fox News in the United States, where every successive second produces a fresh crisis threatening the free world. It's like watching C-Span, on steroids, and should be reserved to professionals and political junkies.

The rest of us thankfully have a life, and that's why I never switch on the ABC's TV news in the morning, and why I won't be watching with bated breath, the news 24/7 on the ABC, because there's a life to be lead.

Professionals might care about who broke what, and in what order, but thankfully there are those of us still running around who are pleased when regular programming is maintained, instead of the old line where some voice of god interrupts the program to announce that the king is dead, long live the redheaded queen.

No, we get enough of our daily dramas, and portents of doom from reading the commentariat class on a daily basis, and who better to give us a dose of portentous gloom than the prattling Polonius Gerard Henderson, who arrives late to the scene of a crisis now heading to a week old, with It's game on with some new rules.

Hark, is the header a jest derived from Bill Maher's jokey 'new rules' segment? You're kidding right? You don't even get the gallows humour of an undertaker in a Henderson piece.

So how does he cope with being late on the scene? In the usual way, with a history lesson, which naturally distorts and skews the history to suit whatever passing conservative thesis suits mad hatters throwing a tea party.

Henderson revisits Peter Costello's failure to challenge John Howard and exonerates him of any guilt in the matter:

It is fashionable to accuse Costello of lacking the intestinal fortitude to challenge Howard. However, he had scant support in the ministry and virtually no numbers on the backbench - there was little point in challenging Howard on the eve of the 2007 election.

Yes, yes, but he also lacked the ticker, the big sook. He could have - when it counted and mattered - bunged on a do, Paul Keating style, stormed off to the back bench, and waged a white anting campaign, instead of sulking in private with chosen journalists over a glass of wine.

Henderson's thesis of course is that the Liberal party is a gentlemans' club, where gentlemen simply refuse to do beastly, ghastly things, unlike the ALP machine, with its ruthless efficiency:

Labor's changes - from Beazley to Rudd and from Rudd to Gillard - demonstrate it does politics more effectively than the Liberal Party. The early polls indicate Gillard will do a better job than Rudd - if only because she has more people skills than her predecessor.

Yes, there's enough time to sink the slipper into people skills Rudd, the main evidence being that the former Chairman appeared to snub Kristina Keneally, whereas at the time any sensible New South Welshperson knew that it wasn't enough of a snub to appease the gods. The only way to sort out NSW Labor is to nuke them, snubbing them is a kind of mild bon vivant William Makepeace Thackeray routine.

Speaking of people skills, we see that the Downfall skit featuring Chairman Rudd has now topped the 40,000 hit mark, and you can still see it here. It has one immortal line, to do with redheads having no soul, though let's hope for her peace of mind that Tanya Plibersek never sees it.

And then it's on to the business of salvaging what Henderson can from the transition, by first of all crediting Tony Abbott with chairman Rudd's scalp, and then boosting Abbott in most peculiar ways:

Abbott may not have many fans within the parliamentary press gallery, but as the former Labor minister Graham Richardson acknowledged on Sky News last Thursday, Abbott has a certain appeal among what's left of the working class and other lower socio-economic groups.

Yep, fresh from tending his Swiss bank accounts, comes Richo to offer up his expert opinion on what's left of the working class, and other riff raff, hereinafter known, though not limited to, other lower socio-economic groups, also known as peasants, serfs, agricultural labourers, and bloggers.

And then there's the fresh scientific evidence, which certainly can't reveal the truth about climate warming, but clearly establishes that Tony Abbott doesn't pong out the room when the windows are open and a breeze is allowed to blow through the doors:

Recently, on the ABC1 Insiders program, journalist Laura Tingle declared "everybody thinks" the Opposition Leader is "an absolute stinker". Not so, according to the only available scientific evidence. According to yesterday's Newspoll, some 42 per cent of voters are satisfied with Abbott's performance. Sure, his disapproval rating - at 41 per cent - is also high. But the polls indicate Abbott's political support is greater in the general community than it is within the journalist profession.

Ah yes, a poll as scientific evidence, thereby stretching the definition of scientific evidence to establish that global warming does exist, since sundry polls have established that the vast majority of scientists clearly believe global warming is human induced.

No, no, you've got that wrong. What we're learning here is the way the fiendish journalistic profession, which as everyone knows is full of Marxists and socialists and left leaning commentators like Gerard Henderson and Janet Albrechsten, constantly mistakes their opinion with the views of the general community. Which is why John Howard actually won the election back in 2007, but the journalist profession simply refused to acknowledge the truth in the hearts and minds of the average punter.

But what's this? After all this labouring, it's time to cheer on the underdog:

Labor under Gillard starts a clear favourite. Yet the Prime Minister understands the election will be decided in the outer suburbs and regional centres. Abbott may be on the nose in Ultimo and Brunswick but it is far from clear that he is an absolute stinker elsewhere. It's game on and we shall soon know for sure.

At which point, you haver to wonder whether it wouldn't be simpler for Gerard Henderson simply to scribble "god how I hate those wankers in the ABC and Fairfax", and "go Tony". With perhaps a "we luvz ya Tony" thrown in for good measure.

Meanwhile, is it possible for Henderson to clarify what sins Brunswick has committed. Sure we can understand Ultimo, the Sydney headquarters of the ABC, but has Brunswick become the new Fitzroy or worse still, the new Northcote?

Did he mean the ABC in Canberra at Dickson, or Toowong in Brisbane, or Collinswood in SA or Southbank in Victoria - or dear god, yes there's even the ABC in WA lodged in east Perth. Is it a cryptic reference to The Age? But those coffee sippers dwell in the Docklands like the trendies they are ...

Poor old Brunswick, now cryptic code for all that's wrong with Australia. Why, if the trendies keep edging out this way, soon enough we'll be finding trendies under the rocks in Sunshine Deer Park and Parramatta.

Which brings me to the ultimate nightmare. News 24/7, where - because news fails to happen on a regular enough basis - experts and commentariat commentators are larded in between the headlines to berate hapless people living in Brunswick and working in Ultimo.

Yes, that way you end up with the cliched chattering classes berating ordinary punters when we'd all be better off if they were given an all day toffee apple to chew on ...

Come on Jonathon Holmes, admit your error, and get back to working for The Australian!

Meanwhile, let anyone at the ABC who thinks interrupting Jon Stewart to bring me news that the king is dead should think again. Better the comedy on television than the desperate attempts of politicians at comedy ...

And can we also have a new rule? That any subbie using a header using the words "new rules" for a column which contains no actual new rules, but rather a dirge for what might have been in theLiberal party, and a hapless yearning for what might now never be for Tony Abbott, should be taken out and shot.

(Below: and now piano hits and memories from Gra Gra Richo, with cartoonist Pryor celebrating Graham Richardson's revelation in his book that he lied to help Paul Keating replace Bob Hawke as leader of the Labor party. And now he hovers around like a blowfly at a barbeque offering opinions on politics from an informed perspective, to be quoted by cultural warriors like Gerard Henderson. And you wonder why the pond is addicted to Alice in Wonderland!)