Miranda Devine and Andrew Bolt have made up after Monday night’s angry exchange on 2GB, where Bolt threatened to hang up on his News Corp colleague. Devine is filling in for shock jock (and Crikey litigant) Steve Price while he is on I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here, but she did not have quite the same rapport with regular guest Bolt that Price does. Australia’s most-read columnist did not seem to see eye to eye with Devine, however much they both hate, well, everything. Things went south pretty quickly in Monday’s exchange:

M: “Oh, Andrew, we’re not getting anywhere here. Did you or did you not tell us that you thought that Julia Gillard would not have won the election based on polls?”

A: “Let me make my point. Please let me make my points, otherwise there’s no point to the conversation. Let me make my points or there’s no point to the conversation and I may as well go and do something else.”

M: “Did you or did you not say that?”

A: “Put your question and let me answer it. Why are you arguing with me? I’ve tried to tell you …”

M: “Andrew, this is fruitless.”

A: “I know. For Christ sake, Miranda. If you give me a question I’ll answer it, and if you keep interrupting me I’m afraid I’m going to hang up.”

M: “We’ve got five weeks, we have to get on.”

A: “Miranda, in that case you’re describing a living hell for me. It has to work like this. You ask me a question, I give an answer, you can agree with me or not agree with me, but please don’t interrupt me while I’m doing it.”

M: “Well, Andrew, this is my show, so you don’t dictate to me what I do.”

A: “No, it’s our show. Well, if it’s your show how about you do it without me.”

M: “Is that what you want to do?”

A: “I think it is if you’re going to go on like this.”

Tuesday night’s show was very different, with Devine welcoming Bolt as her “longtime friend and colleague”, adding that they had “patched up their differences”. Bolt took a different tack though, opening with “I’ve got to congratulate you”. When Devine asked why, Bolt said:

“Your trick worked — your ruse, your stunt, your media thingo — worked brilliantly. We, for the first time — and Steve Price never managed it — we managed to get on the homepage of pretty much every main paper in the country.”

Devine didn’t seem to go with the “we were making it up” angle, and then Bolt asked “are you maintaining the fiction this was a genuine argument?”. As Bolt and Devine tend to do with most topics, the conversation then turned to why conservatives are better than those on the left, because the argument proved that conservatives think it’s OK to disagree. 

Bolt posted a link to the exchange on his blog before they made up on air, and the comments were as balanced and reasonable as you would expect:

“Miranda is in danger of becoming another one of those shouty women.”

“Miranda Divine just another screeching leftie. I know all and you cannot have a say or opinion if it does not support my view 100%. I listened last night and there was nothing Divine about Devine. I will give it a listen tonight if she does not improve that’s me gone as a listener, I like most, like to be informed / listen to a logical reasoned debate not be lectured by some leftie with their personal agenda.”

“I know Steve Price is incommunicado in the jungle, but does he have any idea what Devine has done to his show? It was atrocious! I stopped listening to Miranda when she hopped aboard the Turnbull train,  and the last thing I want to do is hear her hosting a whole show! Andrew: if you truly have to endure 5 weeks more of this, I wish you strength! I wont be back until Miranda is gone. If its another 5 weeks, who knows whether I will return to 2GB at all.  Please let us know when she’s gone.”

“Miranda sounded like on very spoiled brat with her ‘Its my show’,just imagine wrangling her when she was at school and she is yet to grow up.”

“Hi when you go back on STEVE PRICES show tonight l would not be the fist to say sorry these bloody women who want to be equal let her say sorry first l am sick of all this agenda bullsit mostly all thisfemale stuff thinking they have the right ,that they are right and what ever they do or say is right ,Stay stro g Andrew and dont give away your right or soul .Go hard mate thanks wendie AKA Hada Nuff”

“Little wonder that MGTOW [Men Going Their Own Way, a men’s separatist movement] is now so rife in the West – its pointless to even risk these interactions (and especially under the same, shared roof, with such monotonous regularity nowadays). These increasingly likely interactions are just so draining for the average bloke who is increasingly choosing to avoid them altogether. Mens clubs, the trades, the forces and the maths/science/engineering professions used to be ways of avoiding/escaping these episodes (or mind-f@#ks) in the workplace and socially… but not anymore. Still, at least there is fishing, dirt-biking and 4WD camping without loos as occasional respite – until they become targeted for banning or a clamp-down.”