In which Polonius makes a belated appearance for a late arvo stroll down memory lane ...

 

Of late the only interest in Polonius's postings is whether the grumpy curmudgeon would default to ABC bashing, recycling ancient memes on his shortcut-laden key board - there's never been a conservative on the ABC since he started listening to 2BL in 1932! - or whether he could bore some other topic into submission, grind it into the dust.

It came as no relief to discover in Polonius's belated copy this week that the ABC was mentioned only once.

Instead he spent all his energy on a wander down memory lane, before returning with a jolt to the contest between lettuce and Susssan, or more broadly, to the fate of the Liberal party, aka GOM (grand old Ming party).

Here there was only one question worth answering.

Would the aged dodderer manage to mention Ming the Merciless? Would the reptiles help out by showing a snap of Ming?

The pond supposes that's two questions, but really Ming is a mystical entity, the Sun God of the hive mind, so it's only two sides of a singular coin.

Spoiler alert, the aged delinquent dodderer came through ...

The header: Is the Liberal Party finished? Don’t bet the rent on it yet; There is talk about the Liberal Party being doomed. We’ve heard this before. Labor was finished in 1977. The Liberals in 1993. Both came back — and energy prices could be Labor’s undoing.

The caption for the dire collage, which conforms to all that's bad about reptile illustrations, and which was credited to a certain Sean, new to these here parts: Opposition Leader Sussan Ley. Artwork by Sean Callinan

The pond really should have put up another warning: decrepit old dotard about to take a walk down memory lane - but who could question is wise advice not to bet the rent money on idle predictions.

Did not the original Polonius cunningly use idle gaming as a way to ferret out the truth:

...do you mark this, Reynaldo?
REYNALDO:  Ay, very well, my lord.
POLONIUS: “And, in part, him, but,” you may say, “not well.
But if ’t be he I mean, he’s very wild,
Addicted so and so.” And there put on him
What forgeries you please—marry, none so rank
As may dishonor him, take heed of that,
But, sir, such wanton, wild, and usual slips
As are companions noted and most known
To youth and liberty.
REYNALDO:  As gaming, my lord.
POLONIUS:  Ay, or drinking, fencing, swearing,
Quarreling, drabbing—you may go so far.
REYNALDO:  My lord, that would dishonor him.
POLONIUS : Faith, no, as you may season it in the charge.
You must not put another scandal on him
That he is open to incontinency;
That’s not my meaning. But breathe his faults so
quaintly
That they may seem the taints of liberty,
The flash and outbreak of a fiery mind,
A savageness in unreclaimèd blood,
Of general assault.

Faith, 'tis hard to focus on this Polonius, wandering into the past like a mendicant in search of Liberal alms:

Next Saturday is the 50th anniversary of the Malcolm Fraser-led Coalition’s victory over the Labor Party led by Gough Whitlam.
It was a stunning result, just over four weeks after Fraser had been sworn in as a caretaker prime minister following the dismissal of the Whitlam government by governor-general Sir John Kerr on November 11, 1975.
For a while, Labor was completely disillusioned. Partly because Whitlam did not step down as leader after the election and led his party to another devastating defeat in the (early) election held on December 10, 1977. Bill Hayden, who was to become a most successful Labor leader, challenged Whitlam for the leadership in mid-1977 but failed narrowly to get the numbers.
I remember former Labor MP Barry Cohen telling me that his mind told him to support Hayden but his heart went for Whitlam. Cohen followed his heart. At the time, Fraser was despised by many Labor supporters for blocking supply in late 1975 and bringing on the Dismissal. Later on, Fraser turned on Kerr, palled up with Whitlam and became much loved at literary festivals, where he received standing ovations from left-wingers who had once worn “Shame Fraser, Shame” badges.

Ah the fatal flaw: "I remember":

Do you remember an Inn,
Polonius?
Do you remember an Inn?
And the tedding and the spreading
Of the straw for a bedding,
And the fleas that tease in the High Pyrenees,
And the wine that tasted of tar?
And the cheers and the jeers of the young muleteers
(Under the vine of the dark verandah)?
Do you remember an Inn, Polonius,
Do you remember an Inn?
And the cheers and the jeers of the young muleteeers
Who hadn't got a penny,
And who weren't paying any,
And the hammer at the doors and the Din?
And the Hip! Hop! Hap!
Of the clap
Of the hands to the twirl and the swirl
Of the girl gone chancing,
Glancing,
Dancing,
Backing and advancing,
Snapping of a clapper to the spin
Out and in --
And the Ting, Tong, Tang, of the Guitar.
Do you remember an Inn,
Polonius?
Do you remember an Inn?

Never more;
Polonius,
Never more.
Only the high peaks hoar:
And Aragon a torrent at the door.
No sound
In the walls of the Halls where falls
The tread
Of the feet of the dead to the ground
No sound:
But the boom
Of the far Waterfall like Doom.

Oh dear, the pond can't quite understand how that rollicking Belloc-ing quite came over the pond... 

Perhaps it was a sense that this endless recycling of ancient history somehow resembled a Waterfall of Doom.

Or perhaps it was a fit of nerves at the sight of more lizard Oz graphics, this time from Emilia, quite forgetting to blame AI for it all...Malcolm Fraser and Gough Whitlam. Artwork by Emilia Tortorella

That's artwork? A bit of wretched colouring in?

Back to the wander down memory lane ...

In going through some files recently, I came across the December 17, 1977, issue of The Bulletin weekly magazine. The cover featured a large photo of Fraser holding his hands above his head in victory mode. It featured only three words: “Is Labor Finished?”
There is footage of Whitlam looking deeply depressed as he departed his post-election press conference accompanied by a red-headed staffer. It was Kerry O’Brien, best known for his journalistic life at the ABC.

And that, dear devotees of Polonial prattle, is the only mention of the ABC this day ...as the memories came flooding back like toxic sludge in search of a drainpipe ...

In time Whitlam became one of Labor’s (secular) saints, remembered for the circumstances of his dismissal rather than the manifest incompetence of his government. Hayden took over from Whitlam and did well in his first election in October 1980. However, he was replaced by Bob Hawke on the eve of the March 1983 election, which Labor won comfortably.
The motivation of Hawke, Paul Keating, Hayden, Peter Walsh and other members of the Hawke cabinet was not to repeat the errors of the Whitlam years. They succeeded, winning five elections in a row until John Howard and the Coalition prevailed in March 1996.
So, Labor was back in office in just over seven years after the Dismissal and just over five years after The Bulletin queried whether the party was finished. There is a message here for the Liberal Party.
As I have mentioned in these pages previously, writing in The Age on July 17, 1993, left-of-centre academic Judith Brett declared that “the Liberal Party in the 1990s seemed doomed”.
That was after Liberal Party leader John Hewson lost what some called “the unlosable election”. However, the Liberal Party was back in office in 1996 with Howard as prime minister after 13 years in opposition. And its leader went on to become the second longest serving prime minister in Australian history.
Today, again, there is talk about the Liberal Party being doomed. Who knows? But we do know that it’s difficult to wind up and rebuild a political party. Especially in an electoral system at the commonwealth level that provides for preferential and compulsory voting (the latter now relies more on habit rather than compulsion).
Look at it this way. The Liberal Party of Australia has a federated system. It exists in NSW, Victoria, Western Australia, South Australia, Tasmania and the ACT. In Queensland there is the Liberal National Party (the members of which formally belong to the Liberal Party). Then there is the Country Liberal Party in the Northern Territory. These days political parties depend significantly on government funding – calculated according to the primary vote that parties attain at the previous election. In short, it’s not easy to establish a new party.

Who knows?

“Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? The Shadow knows!"

Sorry, the pond realises this might be sounding flippant, even disrespectful, but the weekend's nearly over, toujours gai Archy, toujours gai, wotthehell, especially as the reptiles eventually came through with that snap of Ming the Merciless ... Robert Menzies established the Liberal Party of Australia in late 1944.

The pond will allow a five minute break for worshipful prayers.

Respect!

Now how about a bit of self-promotion from a certified author, provided you hearken unto 1994:

As I pointed out in my 1994 book Menzies’ Child, when Robert Menzies established the Liberal Party of Australia in late 1944 he brought together a number of all but independent non-Labor organisations. The United Australia Party, which expired in 1944, was not an organised federated institution like the Liberal Party of today.

Still to be found today ...

And so to a bit of both siderism, a chance to berate Malware and dilute any thought of savaging the mutton Dutton:

Commentators correctly point to the fact that, under the leadership of Peter Dutton, the Coalition ran a dreadful campaign in 2025. It should be noted that the Nationals, as part of the Coalition, did relatively well.
But it is also true that the Liberals ran an appalling campaign under Malcolm Turnbull in 2016 in which 14 seats were lost.
In other words, the Liberal Party has performed poorly under the likes of moderates such as Turnbull and political conservatives such as Dutton.

Finally, at last, Polonius offered some thoughts on Susssan v. the lettuce.

It remains to be seen whether Sussan Ley will succeed as leader. But she has developed stances on energy and immigration (the latter yet to be announced) that indicate the Liberals have some direction.

Indeed, indeed, much remains to be seen ...

Sad to say, the lettuce wasn't intimidated.

That "remains to be seen" saved it from a serious case of wilt, especially when the reptiles flung in a snap of Malware, what with Susssan in a former numerological life being almost as wet as him... Former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull. Picture: NewsWire / Martin Ollman

The lettuce loves duelling with wets ...

...Ley told Melbourne radio station 3AW on Friday that the name change came during her “punk phase” as a teenager, shooting down a long-running story that she had added the extra letter because of a belief it would make her life more exciting.
The Liberal leader has also conceded women were “disappointed” with the opposition’s policies at last month’s election, promising the Coalition would “modernise” and offer new ideas on housing, especially for young people, as well as childcare and aged care.
In a 2015 profile with the Australian newspaper, Ley was quoted as saying: “I read about this numerology theory that if you add the numbers that match the letters in your name you can change your personality.
“I worked out that if you added an ‘s’ I would have an incredibly exciting, interesting life and nothing would ever be boring. It’s that simple … And once I’d added the ‘s’ it was really hard to take it away.”(The Graudian)

Apparently the lettuce favours a mix of the I Ching and Sun Tzu's The Art of War as a way of helping punk numerologists live in interesting, neigh exciting, times.

In his final gobbet, Polonius strategised, devising ways to help Susssan...

The recently released Australian Election Study suggests that, for the first time, Australian voters prefer Labor over the Coalition when it comes to economic policy. But it also indicates that cost of living is easily of most importance to voters.
The Coalition is ahead of Labor in only one area – namely, national security. But it’s an important issue.
It’s probably 2½ years to the next election. Labor is comfortably in office but appears to face long-term problems with rising energy prices, which are central to cost-of-living concerns as well as to businesses of all sizes.
As Liberal Party operative Michael Kroger consistently says, the task of the Liberals is to get back to home-ground issues. Namely the economy broadly defined, including cost of living and debt.
The Coalition is currently bleeding votes to One Nation, but unless it collapses, some of this support will come back via preferences.
Apart from a national security surprise, the next election is likely to be fought on economic issues. The Albanese government looks secure for now – but energy prices seem likely to remain a serious problem, even if sections of the media are yet to recognise this.
I suspect that the Liberal Party will be around for some time and that the answer to such a question – “Is the Liberal Party finished?” – will be in the negative.
Gerard Henderson is executive director of The Sydney Institute.

Bold, heady stuff by this defiant braveheart, but how wise it was to banish him to the late arvo boondocks ...

On the upside, it gave the pond the chance to catch up with the weekend infallible Pope.

On the downside, what a waste of an infallible Pope, and the pond reserves the right to refer to it at another time and place ...

What a fine tribute to a broadcaster which earns its way screening wall to wall Nazi docs ...