Brendan Nelson’s Newspoll approval rating has “recovered” according to The Australian , “surging manfully” (our words for it) from 7 to 10%. Meanwhile, in Iraq, a new survey suggests that 56% of the population think things are better now than they were before the war. Back home, the latest Roy Morgan survey of national sentiment recorded a “big” 11% fall in the group who see Australia headed in the “right direction”, down to 51%. 29.5% (up 9.5%) think the country is “seriously heading in the wrong direction” (19% can’t say where it’s headed. We call them the supporters of Malcolm Turnbull.) It is tempting to draw some sort of line through all these obviously related statistics, but we dare not.

Meanwhile, Heather Mills has been given $52 million in her divorce settlement from Paul McCartney, which just goes to show what an eye for value Eliot Spitzer had.

It’s been that kind of morning.