Some great angles on Pittwater
from Graham Young at Online Opinion. “Political brands the Pitts,” he
says. “The incidence of Independents has been on the rise for some
time. As of yesterday there are now 7 in the NSW Parliament and 5 in
Queensland…

“The implication of this is that the entitlement
mentality displayed by so many political operators will most likely
bring as its reward the failure of their ambitions.”

That’s the general. Then there’s the specific:

There would have been no Pittwater by-election if the
religious right of the NSW Liberals hadn’t targeted John Brogden,
destroying his political career and his mental equilibrium. They
appeared to assume that the Liberals were going to win the next
election because they were the Liberal Party, and therefore it was
better to have one closer to their way of thinking than Brogden in
charge.

Now they are even further away from power. Perhaps they
ought to listen to God’s not so still small voice and spend less of
their time near the organ’s thunder!

Peter Costello and his
supporters seem to assume that the leadership of the Federal Liberal
Party is something to be inherited by the “next in line”. After this
by-election result John Howard will be even more inclined to make him
play Prince Charles and bide his time…

Woo-hoo! Read it all here.