The Peter Costello media bandwagon is off and running again. The 12-year-old story about his prime ministerial ambitions, his off-again, on-again pursuit of power, is filling the vacant minds in Canberra once more.
Amid the speculation, the real story is this. Costello still has delusions of occupying The Lodge. But he won’t accept the Liberal leadership unless it is presented to him by the parliamentary party, without reservations.
He doesn’t want a knock-down, drag-’em-out contest with Malcolm Turnbull or anyone else. He showed no stomach to have it with Howard either. He won’t organise the numbers and he won’t campaign for the job, openly or in the background. He wants to be drafted in the manner of Charles de Gaulle coming back from political exile to lead the Fifth Republic.
The condition of his return will be a blank cheque on the appointment of shadow ministers and the framing of policy. (More or less what Rudd insisted upon).
In the meantime, he will write his memoirs and later this year publish his version of how Australia achieved the world’s strongest economy and he became the world’s greatest treasurer (pace, Paul Keating!).
The book is designed to be more than a political biography: it’s a manifesto. It is central to his subliminal campaign to address the Liberal Party, the media and the electorate.
The success of this vanity depends on Brendan Nelson continuing to be an unelectable disaster and an atmosphere of such choking despair that all eyes in the Liberal Party room turn to one man of destiny to lead them out of the wilderness – the 50-year-old MP for Higgins.
Will it fly? Within the disorganised dregs of Her Majesty’s federal Liberal Party anything is possible.
“The Peter Costello media bandwagon is off and running again………………is filling the vacant minds in Canberra once more.” Thank God, Alex, you’re here to put the rest of us straight! Finally the definitive word to end all speculation. Thank you
Harvey M Tarvydas: You forgot to mention where JWH got the rest of his jollies. Namely, by kneeling on the bed-room floor with Janette and facing the dying sun, their mingled voices forming a low moan of passion before reaching the climax of their recitation “But the sun will never set on you, your majesty” As the last ray of light passes over their bedroom it flickers on a huge print of the Anigoni painting of QE11, done in the 1950’s.
Scene 11: JWH and Janette are again on their knees in their bedroom, and facing the dying sun. Suddenly a messanger knocks on door, enters the room and passes our Johnny a piece of paper. Swiftly Janette grabs it, reads it and slowly falls into a death like trance. As the message leaves her hand its contents can be seen. ‘Her Majesty regrets she is unable to award you the title of ‘Knight of the Order of the Garter’. As the curtain falls John Winston Howard, the worst PM in Australia’s history, can be seen reaching for a knife.Gone with the Windsors.
Well may you call them the disorganised dregs of Her Majesty’s federal Liberal Party? Her Majesty’s federal Liberal Party had recently been but a vehicle occupied by supremo conmen whom are, when they are so superbly successful, defined by the experts as (technically) psychopaths. These have the ability to lie at will without compunction (much less guilt) so successfully that the seduction is hard to believe even when seen (staring you in the face). The vehicle driven by a leader distinguished as a bully with an extraordinary strength and weakness of getting his jollies behind a bush. Not any old bush mind you. Or should that have been ‘not any old mindless bush’.
Perhaps the big companies who he hoped would employ the arrogant, world’s greatest treasurer weren’t interested in his doubtful talents.
So, he wants to be drafted? Given that her majesty’s Australian Liberal Party has imploded and is in no position to draft a calf. Olé, olé.
As long as Turnbull is in the Parliament Cossie will be hunted. However, he is the Libs’ best chance in an election regardless of the economic status of the country.