Howard’s plan to end?: The scuttlebutt around the traps in areas that should know is that there are already explicit signals that the NT “emergency response” will be “pulled out” within six to 12 months… so much for serious policy.

A Scotland Yard mystery: The high level police woman from Scotland Yard who was flown here, amidst much publicity went home one day later, without any publicity. What was behind her rapid retreat?

Grilled Towke: Grilled Towke with buttered ALP membership records was on the menu when a hard left Liberal numbers man dined with a hard left ALP numbers man recently at an upmarket bay side restaurant in the southern suburbs. Imagine his surprise when Robert McClelland, ALP Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs taking his wife to dinner for their wedding anniversary, came across a regularly occurring Labor, Liberal love-in between ALP Anthony Albanese Manager of Opposition Business in the House of Representatives and Liberal left wing head kicker Sam Witheridge. Towke the preselected Liberal candidate for Cook has been asked by Liberal left aligned State Director Graham Jaeschke to provide a written statement from the ALP detailing his membership of that party. Tabloid journos have revealed that a doctored membership spread sheet supplied by the ALP is being held by Liberal secretariat – hardly convincing evidence whilst Albanese tours the seat of Cook promoting the hapless Labor candidate. Could ALP membership records have been on the menu when Witheridge dined with Albanese?

Not newsworthy: How come the NT ABC hasn’t yet run the story about Howard Govt Minister Scullion and CLP MP Tolner being questioned over taking grog into a dry area? The Age ran the story and the ABC News site made a reference but nothing on the local news site and no follow-up. Maybe it’s not newsworthy that the Community Services Minister and Deputy Leader of the Nationals in the senate is involved in an investigation when the Feds are so concerned about the ‘rivers of grog’.

Kevin and John’s MySpace wars: A friend swears this is true. She has a Myspace page, and signed up as Kevin Rudd’s ‘friend’ last week. Within about an hour of getting listed on Kevin’s page, she’d received an invitation to sign up as a ‘friend’ of John Howard, despite never having visited his myspace page or having previously had much to do with the Liberal Party. So someone in Howard’s office seems to have a job trawling Kevin Rudd’s Myspace friends, checking their pages for anti-Howard opinions, and inviting suitably apolitical myspacers to double up as both Howard- and Rudd-friends. Waiting for the press release “X % of Rudd’s Myspace friends support the PM too.”