Ross Cameron, and if you want to lose a shirt, then become a mug punter follower of Cameron's tips ...

(Above: a glum Monday, and returning to reading the commentariat feels vaguely like being stranded on a desert island).

The gloating has begun, and the Fairfax wolves have begun to lick their lips, smack their chops, drool in an unseemly way, drivel, dribble, slobber, and otherwise display symptoms of ptyalism, which is to say an produce an excess of saliva.

Naturally Generally Grumpy Paul Sheehan is hard out of the blocks with Thomson saga sinks Labor into the abyss, which pretty much recycles all that is known of the Thomson saga, and therefore can be excised on the grounds of repetitive tedium, until the entire piece builds to a tumultuous, climatic piece of speculation:

All these issues weave into a single defining and unanswered question: has Thomson been caught out in multiple lies? On this thread hangs the Gillard government.

Indeed. And all the musical notes might build into a single unanswered question, at least if you happen to have composer Charles Ives composing the work The Unanswered Question in 1906.

But just as a trumpet repeats the external question of existence, only to be extinguished by silence, we must ask whether there's anything to be gained from reading Sheehan, or might we be better off with an extended silence.

A more astute single defining and answered question would be to note that Thomson has been caught out, and the real question is whether he can be nailed by the Liberal party, or other forces of a more legitimate kind.

As Rupert and James Murdoch and Bill Clinton can freely advise, the cover up is always more problematic than any initial perception of misdeeds ... though perhaps to conflate oral sex and the use of prostitutes providing legal services with the activities of the Murdoch press in the UK is to do a dis-service to sex workers and the ways of carefully selective wowsers ... (no, there'll be no cheap jibes about shop lifting and assault on the pond, not when we can all do the timewarp and the hokey pokey on YouTube. Any minor sin can surely be forgiven for such a divine sense of rhythm).

Meanwhile, it's heart-warming to see that hypocrite from Parramatta, Ross Cameron, joining the Christopher Pearson brigade by running the line that the bookies are hot to trot for Simon Crean.

Yep, if you want a far-fetched, rich, indulgent fantasy life, it's all there in Crean for PM? Why the bookies think it's not so far-fetched, and as mischief-making and as meaningless a form of gibberish as you can usually only find when you read Labor party types speculating about the internal politics and leadership of the Liberal party.

Perhaps the funniest line in the entire piece is this one:

According to sources in the private sector, the ALP's NSW secretary, Sam Dastyari, says privately that federal Labor is headed for a rout of NSW proportions.

Uh huh That'd be the private sources in the private sector talking privately about the private words of the ever so private Sam, revealing what any dunderhead might opine on the basis of the last month or two of federal polling.

When you get to this level of stupidity, you know you're in the safe, caring hands of Ross Cameron.

Naturally the slobber of saliva is all over Cameron's face, with the Labor party insolvent (never mind that the Liberal party is also short of funds), a galactic wipe out impending at the polls, and so talk must turn to a new leader to replace Gillard, and naturally Cameron puts Crean - the self-effacing dodo and alleged minister of the y'arts and the regions - at the head of the pack:

The question then arises, who should the replacement be? Simon Crean, Stephen Smith, Greg Combet and Bill Shorten - in roughly that order - are regarded as offering the best chance to exorcise the spectres haunting Gillard, with Wayne Swan too deeply implicated in the present regime and a Kevin Rudd return considered ''just too weird''.

Cameron then spends the rest of the time considering the opposition to Crean, running through Shorten, Combet and Smith like a pack of salts, before giving it all up as too hard, and settling on Simon Crean as the bookies' choice:

If someone is going to accept this mission, they will need to be at the tail-end of a political career in which this kamikaze act would be an honourable exit. Stephen Smith is regarded as a serious political professional with genuine mainstream Labor convictions. But Simon Crean has firmed in the betting from $110 to $10 since mid-July and shapes as the most likely consensus candidate. Like a nightwatchmen being sent in to bat in fading light, he can be sacrificed, leaving the future stars in the locker room and limiting the risk of a complete rout.

Uh huh. An even more stupid cricketing metaphor as an added bonus to the punter follies.

Naturally we headed off to Centrebet to check out the real odds, and the last update we could find was to hand on 4th August, 2011, under the header Smith surge to lead Labor!, and here were the odds:

ALP LEADER NEXT FEDERAL ELECTION

$1.70 Julia Gillard (out from $1.65)

$4.50 Bill Shorten (out from $4.40)

$7.50 Any Other

$8.00 Stephen Smith (in from $10.00)

$8.50 Greg Combet (out from $7.50)

$10.00 Kevin Rudd

$17.00 Chris Bowen

$41.00 bar

Yes, I know, I know, I too was wondering what happened to that hot bookie tip Simon Crean. Maybe he's racing up on the outside along the rails so he can win by a canter by a short head ... provided Cameron provides the short head. Go Bess:

More than a dozen horses went out, and when the starter said “Off!” didn’t they go! Our eyes at once followed Bess. Dave was at her right from the jump — the very opposite to what Dad had told him. In the first furlong she put fully twenty yards of daylight between herself and the field — she came after the field. At the back of the course you could see the whole of Kyle’s selection and two of Jerry Keefe’s hay-stacks between her and the others. We didn’t follow her any further. (On Our Selection, here).

Over at another site, we picked up this handy chart, and if you're feeling like a bet, you might like to click on it to enlarge.

Uh huh. Suffice to say that all punters are mugs, but you'd have to be a truly extraordinary mug to mount a punt by paying attention to the blatherings of Ross Cameron.

Well after his routine bit of nonsense and mischief-making, Cameron reserves his last par for a final smacking of the lips:

The Prime Minister remains remarkably poised and appears to have stemmed the bleeding in the past two Newspolls but it's going to take a superhero feat, and each day she wakes in fear of the conversation with trusted colleagues that begins: ''Prime Minister … Julia … we need to talk.'

Uh huh. Well Cameron would know all about that feeling, since he had a conversation with the electorate that ended dear MP Ross, we need to have a talk. Oh on second thoughts just get lost, and take your pious hypocritical blathering about family life with you.

Now all we're waiting for is a conversation with a trusted Fairfax editor, which begins Dear Mr. Cameron we don't need to talk any more, and we certainly don't need to read your columns ... the punters outside just lost their shirts punting on one of your tips, and they're as mad as hell and wanting their money back ...

(Below: punting Ross Cameron and Christopher Peason style, courtesy First Dog. More First Dog here).