In the end, there was nothing much to interpret. There was no magic, no mystery, no hidden depths or tugging complexity. It’s true the vibe of things was all over the place, catastrophically so. But ultimately it was just John Howard being John Howard — still alive, still flailing, still a national embarrassment. Symbolising, parabolically, the wet-dog smell of everything that’s marked conservatism as a wasteland of intellectual thinking for over 30 years.
The nation’s great pretender, that great charismatic bundle of dishonesty and masked and unmasked bigotry, had last week found himself proselytising at a Tories-united last-gasp global saloon in the United Kingdom. And there he sat, in a scene impressive for its feral intensity, plodding on, drifting in and out of faraway dreamy Howard-time in an unbecoming spectacle of grandiose delusion.
“Multiculturalism,” the long-time moral derelict told the inaugural Alliance for Responsible Citizenship conference in London, “is a concept that I’ve always had a bit of trouble with.” As he said it, he hit chords of faint defiance, petulance and a note or two of something approaching honesty, as if mildly frustrated it’s taken until the end of 2023, all 84 of his birthdays, to tell us what he really thinks. As if none of us ever really had a clue.
But in truth, this was Howard’s moment, his time to shine, and he was flying high — like a sky-diver in righteous free-fall. Delirious at this glorious opportunity to internationally embrace his inner bigot and dispense with the tedious weight of moral clarity, basic reason and whatever gaping void has long passed for his conscience.
“I take the view that if people want to emigrate to a country,” he continued, “it’s on the basis that they adopt the values, the practices and standards of that country, and in return they’re entitled to have the HOST—!” Host? What host? Trumpy Howard was suddenly jumpy Howard. Only nobody knew why, what had inspired the abrupt turn. “…citizenry respect their culture without trying to create some kind of federation of tribes and culture,” he finished in an undignified gurgle.
Then you see it: host citizenry. The source of his jitters, the Sartrean splitting of his mind. No wonder this grifter looked momentarily perturbed. The word host must have briefly flashed an image of First Nations peoples in his head. What else? How preposterous, how unutterably insane, this indecorous connoisseur in historical denialism was thinking. Still, you could see him telling himself, at least he nailed the “federation of tribes” bit — that perfect panorama of unadulterated vulgarity.
And so on he marched, the country’s forever empty conscience, shaking off the thorny contradiction as any brazen conservative spear-thrower would: speaking in earnest, speaking reality into existence, saying the unsayable in his sometimes lumpy but basically monotonal blah-blah-blah voice of faux sincerity. “You get into terrible trouble with [multiculturalism],” says jabber John, flapping his arms about with unseemly stiffness, the refulgence searching in vain for some hint of humanity on his shameless face.
The camera then flashed to the interviewer, who was leaning in and squinting, really squinting, and nodding in a way that impressed upon everyone watching that he knew what the hell Howard was on about, even if no one else did. What a hero. Howard then slurred and sludged out a few more words, finally muttering something audible about a “progressive barn dance” and “institutionalised difference”, at which point every dead-eyed attendee at this dippy nirvana of right-wing group therapy more or less found themselves on the same page. Cue the unserious applause.
This is modern conservatism stripped bare. A disturbing glimpse into the vasty deep of what passes for high-tide right-wing thinking today. No scurrying or doleful violins, just a sheer mental brutalism enthralled to some head-bobbing lizard code of survival. Mental it is, and mental is where they’re at.
So it was fitting, really, that the overriding theme of this tawdry three-day conference, headlined by Jordan Peterson, that “rule of law guy” Republican Speaker Mike Johnson, a cavalcade of high-profile climate sceptics, anti-woke crusaders and failed former Liberal leaders from Australia — Tony Abbott and Scott Morrison among them — was civilisational decline.
Catastrophism and doom — those prophets that spell the end of everything — were by rights the order of the day, with endless speeches about endless greatness. So much greatness, oppressive amounts of greatness. But not winning. Because winning would have been off-message and off-brand. The narrative proposition of this rotating cast of unhinged weirdos, moral degenerates and conspiracy theorists was pandemonium. Pandemonium at home, in our schools, our institutions, on our streets, in our energy policies and at the quiet burger bar.
This, after all, was about confronting, head-on, that “mighty coalition” of powerful cultural and economic elites who dominate everything and everyone, threatening to undo all that is good and wonderful in our world.
Lapping up this pablum was an inflamed rump of lackeys, fire-breathers and hard-liners from Australia — a polyp of self-described true believers including Andrew Hastie, Angus “fantastic” Taylor, James Paterson, Catholic Archbishop Anthony Fisher and, not least, Jacinta Nampijinpa Price. The intellectual sharp edges of the country’s right, united in some desperate cause, some romance of unreality, to help Tories-the-world-united defy the crushing failure that is Francis Fukuyama’s declaration of “the end of history”, as though they’ve forgotten the pathetic state of Dutton’s opposition.
In a nod to our generous nature, Price echoed Howard’s remarks, telling the conference that “we’re here to help” should any country need some “tips on how to push back” on identity politics — that “ridiculous ideology”. The evidence suggests she hoisted her chin in tandem with her solemn declaration, her face twisted in some intense super-frown — like a Roman effigy, just waiting to be torn down by nasty woke elites someday. But for now, this “so be it if it happens” potential prime minister was being greeted with a roaring ovation.
So far, so good, thought Price. Yet Price was never the star, much the less point, of this right-wing loser fest. Everyone was there to reinvent themselves and, more importantly, to do the impossible and reinvent their movement — this once-great but now ineffably grotesque movement — before it trundles off forever to the gravitational pull of oblivion’s door.
It was a do-or-die, now-or-never mission. Make that die. Make that never. There was nothing inspiring about this obscenity parade. Not if the Australian Christian Lobby’s Lyle Shelton is any guide, who tweeted that the crowd had been treated to Howard’s “brilliant best”.
And so there it is. An anthology of decline foretold. The apocalyptic vibe of this movement seems destined to write itself into every story and every speech of gloom, and, probably, the movement’s crushing demise. A story arc, headed for a fatal collision with history, unable to realise that to be a true Tory these days, you probably have to stand for everything that Howard and this right-wing rabble are not.
It is easy to mock this rightist gab-fest. So I will. The spectacle of hundreds of old Tories hanging on every desk-calendar banality of that patent snake-oil salesman Jordan Peterson as if they were profound spiritual truths, the sight of the Beetrooter and Prince of Rural Rorters Barnaby enlisting in the Christian crusade to bring about the moral renewal of the Western world. It is all beyond satire.
There is a serious point to be gained from this, however. The Right have realized that voters are no longer going to buy neo-liberal nostrums any more. After 40 years of Thatcherite Greed is Good economic policy, even the dimmest National Party voter must be starting to realize that it just doesn’t trickle down. It gets sucked up by the one per cent, while workers’ income goes backwards and the middle class tread water. So the party-political wing of the Right will have to find new electoral messages, without giving up their profound organic links to the big end of town. My prediction is that their notion of “values-based” politics is going to get very vicious very soon. And front-men like Dutton are more than ready to take the low road, the only one he instinctively knows.
Nastiness, sophistry, mendacity, sanctimony and hypocrisy is their stock in trade.
Values or sociocultural issues makes sense vs. employment, education etc. and broader socio-economic issues as so many of their constituents are retired and living longer, but no direct stake in working age or younger, maybe also wanting some faux preaching or sermonising?
One recalls Howards describing Brexit outcome leaving the EU as ‘delightful’ (ruining the future of youth?) and Trump was a response to ‘political correctness’…..; doesn’t seem to reflect their mantra of ‘economic management’ etc.?
Below is a history of LNP/IPA malfeasance from when Howard was Treasurer in the Fraser Government…
1983 – The Coalition under Malcolm Fraser with John Howard as Treasurer hand over to Labor an economy ranked 20th in the world having created both stagflation and pushing unemployment into double-digits with inflation peaking at 12.5% with official interest rates reaching 21%.
1996 – Paul Keating and Labor hand over to the Coalition an economy now ranked 6th in the world.
2007 – John Howard and the Coalition hand back an economy to Labor that had slipped down to 9th place in the world and it was Howard and Costello who were responsible for two bouts of “fiscal profligacy” in in 2003 at the start of the mining boom and during his final years in office between 2005 and 2007.
And Lest We Forget marching off on not one but two more US Military adventures ,The Afghan Imbroglio only just finished at a cost in excess of AUD 9 billion and counting…The Iraq Fiasco more than AUD 5 billion to to which may now be added the cost of The Da’esh Disaster AUD?… all these supposedly somehow in the defence of Australia?
2013 – Labor under Rudd/Gillard hand over to the Coalition the best performing economy in the world, boasting AAA credit ratings after navigating Australia through the GFC (The worst financial crisis since the Great Depression of the 1920s) and an economy that was ranked at 3rd in the world.
2014 – 2019 The Coalition under the ATMs presided over an economy that had now slipped back down to 28th in the world
And this by having had the “better economic managers.” and lucky enough to have “the adults in charge”, viz: Abbot with Smokin’ Joe Hockey and Cormann, The Belgian Waffle: Turnbull with Smirko The Happy Clapper and Cormann The Belgian Waffle.
The Belgian Waffle was consistent in these so called Budgets and was again in Smirko’s Cabinet of Muppets, with Mr Coal Fraudenberg as the Treasurer, for despite being Prime Muppeted, rebadged, recapped and resloganed the “Here for You ” LNP is proving to be exactly the same as the “Here for Us” LNP. Now there is SImon The Brummegen as Finance Minister and still Fraudenberg as Treasurer.
That debt and deficit disaster about which the ATM LNP was so apoplectic had under such “better economic managers” moved as a % of GDP 10.2% in 2012 to 19.2% in. 2019 an increase of close to 100% and is now following the Covid outbreak at over 24% see @
And when was Australia’s most needlessly wasteful spending?
It took place under the John Howard-led Coalition withe Costello as Treasurer, rather than any Labor government neither that of Whitlam nor Rudd Rudd nor Gillard as an IMF international study found.
It identifies only two periods of Australian “fiscal profligacy” in recent years, both during John Howard’s term in office – in 2003 at the start of the mining boom and during his final years in office between 2005 and 2007.
The IMF study mirrors findings of a 2008 Australian Treasury study that found real government spending grew faster in the final four years of the Howard government than in any four-year period since the 1990s recession.
As for handling the GFC…While other countries argued the merits of stimulus spending from an ideological viewpoint Labor acted. The Rudd Government’s stimulus aimed to benefit household expenditure which assisted employment in the most exposed industries of the economy: hospitality, retail and other service industries.
“International financial institutions strongly endorsed Australia’s response to the GFC. IMF commended the ‘quick implementation of targeted and temporary fiscal stimulus’ considering that it provided a sizeable boost to domestic demand in 2009 and 2010 OECD concluded that Australia’s fiscal stimulus package ‘was among the most effective in the OECD’ and not only ‘helped to avoid a recession as usually defined’ but also that it ‘had a pivotal role in boosting overall confidence’ It attributed the effectiveness of the stimulus to both the size of the measures and the speed with which it was introduced”
Hear, hear. But of course the facts have nothing to do with the default Tory posture of nearly breaking one arm patting oneself on the back, while working up a case of carpal tunnel on the other with furiously unceasing w4nk.
Good potted history, that also allows one to infer something else.
The imported US themes or ideology of Howard’s & Abbott’s LNP, RW MSM and IPA masquerading as economics (coy about John Birch Society & Mont Pelerin links); corrupt nativist authoritarianism or 18-19thC eugenics (deep south planter or segregation economics) for the 21stC.
Apart from the implicit racism is the class or economic pecking order for the <1%; whether economy is healthy or in decline, etc., is irrelevant for the ‘top people’ (cue Pratt’s comments) and their wealth, but protecting themselves from the plebs, inc liberal democracy aka Brexit, taxes and regulation.
100% Agreed. Though I prefer MorrisConman to smirks.
But wherever and whatever the occasion he always had that smirk on his face.
One exception was when he tried glad handing those people following the bush fires!
Lovely stuff but you missed an opportunity for arty alliteration and assonance with Afghan Fiasco and Iraq Imbroglio.
Otherwise five stars for conscientious research and firstclass content, and an extra gold star for overall literary and journalistic excellence.
It seems that cons spruikers are about today, voting down factual information.
But what else can they do – how else to try to conceal their distrust of honesty and integrity in examining those facts ?
To them, all expert, disinterested information is an attack on their god-given right to be ignorant and bigoted.
The reason for the use of The Iraq Fiasco followed on from reading this book which I recommend to you….
Fiasco: the American military adventure in Iraq / Thomas E. Ricks
New York : Penguin Press, 2006
ISBN: 159420103X. 9781594201035
LC: DS79.76 .R535 2006
Ricks records that the folks at Foggy Bottom, an apt name for where the US State Department resides I think, had been working on plans for some time. Plans to rebuild/restore infrastructure and services damaged in Iraq during the earlier attack, invasion and as a result of the sanctions. They also had plans for the restoration of civil governence and the legal system.
All this was pushed aside by Rummy, saying that the people who had been working on these plans were too close to the subject ie they were Arabists and other specialists, who had knowledge of Iraqi/Arab/Kurdish culture, language and expertise on Middle East politics etc.
For Rummy and Dubya the Faux Texan, that previous, unlamented GOP encumbrance in the White House, it counted for nothing. This was a faith based administration. And had not Dubya, along with the Poodle, consulted the Lord, who said it was OK to visit shock and awe on the land of Iraq. Oh so Tanakh/OT.
Furthermore when talking to senior members of the Bush Administration Ricks was both stunned and concerned that there was no real idea of the cultural, ethnic, political, racial. and religious differences in that area.
Arabs, Iranians, Kurds all just Muslims and dark skinned and wearing stuff on their heads?
Arabs bringing to the West the ideas and philosophy of the Greeks ?
Sunni or Shi’i but also Alawite, Christian, Druze, very tribal still?
Iranian culture stretching back over 3000 years, think Shiraz grapes, miniature painting, Rumi, mostly Shi’i but also Christian, Jewish, Manichean?
Kurds pale skin , blue green eyes, Salah al-Din founder of the Ayyubid dynasty, mostly Sunni but other religious beliefs as well?
Well the pig ignorant Poodle and Faux Texan went gung ho with the “shock and awe” followed by the illegal invasion and occupation.
Ricks shows how ignorant and full of themselves were The White House Cabal, the PNAC crew led by the nose by that crook Ahmed Chalabi as well as The Poodle and his Cabal. This leading up to the illegal invasion and occupation of Iraq, the so called “cakewalk”
Into which The Lying Rodent©Senator George Brandis, marched off lock step. Being only too keen to emulate Min the Mendacious, who had Australia march off lock step into that that earlier US military adventure The Viet Nam Farrago!
Imbroglio was used concerning Afghan US military adventure as that is what happens in Afghanistan. Embroilment!
If anyone should have known not to become involved, it should have been Britain, but also Australia, as much of the military and strategic study in Australia is drawn from the British experience.
The British efforts in Afghanistan
First Anglo-Afghan War (1839-1842): Lost one survivor
Second Anglo-Afghan War (1878-1881): After several victories British forces withdrew, having set up a regime more agreeable to them as a bulwark against Russian expansion and also establishing the Durand Line, the border between the then British India and Afghanistan…a border that Pashtun tribes ignored and still do.
Third Anglo-Afghan War (1919) Draw, but the British did bomb the civilian population ie lots of collateral damage….King Amanullah objected to the British about the air raids on Kabul citing British condemnation of the German Zeppelin attacks on London. In his letter to the British government he said, “It is a matter of great regret that the throwing of bombs by Zeppelins on London was denounced as a most savage act and the bombardment of places of worship and sacred spots was considered a most abominable operation, while now we see with our own eyes that such operations were a habit which is prevalent amongst all civilised people of the West…
The Afghan Imbroglio was dragged out for close to 20 years
The USSR had withdrawn. This following the efforts of the USA to turn Afghanistan into a USSR Viet Nam. A photograph from 1983, shows “brave freedom fighters” as Reagan’s guests in the Oval Office at The White House.
So with US CIA funding and arming in conjunction with Saudi Arabia GID funding and preaching jihad with the CIA training all through the Pakistan ISI the result was a well-armed, well-trained group of jihadis who resisted the USSR presence.
Once the USSR retreated, the US lost interest and pulled the funding then came civil war in which the Taliban managed to finally control most of the country.
So again yet another US military adventure with yet again a Lying Nasty Party government marching of lock step.
Talk about never learning from history….
“Die Geschichte hat noch nie etwas anderes gelehrt, als dass die Menschen nichts aus ihr gelernt haben.”. Georg Frederich Hegel: Early 19th Century
History has never taught anything other than that people have learned nothing from it:
“Er hat vergessen, hinzuzufügen: das eine Mal als Tragödie, das andere Mal als Farce.” Karl Marx: mid 19th Century
He, (Hegel,) forgot to add this: first as tragedy, second as farce.
“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” Georges Santayana. Early 20th century
Badly drawn lines on the map which expunged Turkistan and produced Iraq and a larger Turkey will continue to mean trouble into the future. Ditto the old Syria, of course.
Grandfather was an ambulance driver in the UK in WW1 so met many returning wounded. He was a cheerful old chap, but he warned me very seriously to NEVER NEVER go to Mesopotamia.
Turkestan in Central Asia was the putative home of the Turkic speaking peoples, long before there was a Turkey/Türkiye.
There was nowhere called ‘Turkistan’ – ever.
Did you mean Kurdistan?
That beleaguered people’s homeland is now straddling Iran, Turkey (sic!) Iraq and even a bit of Syria – thanks to François & Mark being too drunk with power to listen to sound advice.
There are now about 25 million Kurds in the in their homeland set between what is now Iran, Iraq, Syria and Turkey. They are probably another 2-3 million in the Kurdish Diaspora.
But thanks to oil, the wheeling and dealing at the end of WWI and now the almost intransigent problems in that part of the world they are probably the only people, of such numbers, not to have their own nation state.
For following WWI and the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, the Allies agreed and planned to create several countries within its former boundaries. One of them, according to the never-ratified Treaty of Sèvres was to be Kurdistan.
Iraq was created as a puppet state of the UK, by Winston Churchill. And it was the Kurds in the north of Iraq who were bombed, machine gunned and mortared by a combination of the RAF and the British Army. Bomber Harris, early in his career, was full of enthusiasm for this campaign. Kurds today remember those attacks on defenceless villages.
Churchill was prepared to use gas…” I am strongly in favour of using poisoned gas against uncivilised tribes. The moral effect should be so good that the loss of life should be reduced to a minimum. It is not necessary to use only the most deadly gasses: gasses can be used which cause great inconvenience and would spread a lively terror and yet would leave no serious permanent effects on most of those affected.”
But those shells supplied were found to be unreliable, although at one stage it was thought that they could be adapted for use by the RAF!
Iraq was set up to ensure supplies of bunker fuel for the RN. For It was oil that early on reared one of its Hydra head with the RN, in a programme started by Admiral of the Fleet “Jackie” Fisher, converting from a coal to an oil burning fleet. Britain needed to control that oil in what had been part of the Ottoman Empire.
But the reconquest of the area by Kemal Atatürk had the Allies forced to accept the renegotiated Treaty of Lausanne, with what are now the borders of the modern Republic of Turkey, where more than 15% of the population are Kurds.
The other parts of the Ottoman Empire became British mandated what is now Iraq, where they are more than 15%, as well as Palestine which currently has c.150,000 of Islamic Kurdish origin and possibly over 200,000 of Jewish Kurdish origin in Israel and then in what was the French mandated Syria where they are now c.10%. As well as a majority in the Iranian province of Kurdistan.
Yes! Of course – a total mis-write. Embarrassing. Thanks for the correction.
My grandfather on my father’s side following his WW1 experience, which had him injured early on, sent back to the UK and on recovery then posted to Dublin Castle for light duties, just about the time of the Easter Uprising!
My grandfather’s later postings were out to the Raj, first up what was known as a hardship posting, in the NWFP, North West Frontier Provinces in what was to become Pakistan. In NWFP there was much activity, of suppressing the activities of the Pathans, now called Pushtun, who lived on and around the Durand Line, which cut through their tribal lands. They had to chase/force back any large groups of Pushtun that crossed over from Afghanistan.
My father and some aunts and uncles were born there or in the next posting to Ceylon which was classed as not a hardship posting. He was then posted back to the UK and finished up with a posting to Folkestone ,Kent, before retiring sometimes in the 1930s.
I take your German quotes on trust and agree with the sentiments.
Thanks for the rating, GG, in my last position for c,15 years I worked in Document Supply/ILL in the Academy Library UNSW Canberra aka ADFA.
My job was chasing down material apparently not held in the various collections, book, journals, conference papers, both hard copy and in electronic form, being databases, journals etc.
But my first search was checking out the Academy Library holdings of all sorts as above.
Often I would find the requested item available there, but if not it was into chasing down availability within Australia and Aotearoa, then overseas, depending on what the possible source of the requested it might be, EU, Canada, UK, US, occasionally China, India or Japan.
In discussions with the clients- honors, postgraduates of various sorts , masters, PhDs or academic staff members I was exposed to a lot of information that helped in tracking down material and also assisted in correlating such.
When addressing problems in obtaining some material I had to write brief, clear and concise explanations as to what could be located and what could not, for whatever reason.
Thanks. I buy Crikey to read the informed comments, more than anything else. The journalism too, but journalists are dogged by having to fill space regardless. Regional history explains much of today’s unrest, but is seldom offered. Spinless facts are gold.
Thanks Howard. Nice to have someone forward all their spade-work so I don’t have to.
“The Right have realized that voters are no longer going to buy neo-liberal nostrums any more.” Agree. However, Sir Roger Scruton (How To Be A Conservative) wasn’t at the meet. Strange – other academics were. He has been the one key vocal academic to say that conservatives should distance themselves from the economy and do more “conserving” in the traditional sense. Perhaps his views are too conservative.
More likely could have something to do with his being dead for more than three years.
To be fair, a touch of rigor mortis is not really enough to keep a good philosopher down. Consider the stuffed corpse of Jeremy Bentham. His will requested that his body — his auto-icon as he termed it — should be wheeled out for department meetings at University College London and that he should be listed as ‘present but not voting’. Sir Roger’s inabity to transcend a mere bit of mortality simply shows that he’s no Jeremy Bentham.
He was Thatcher’s favourite rabble soother and academic spokesbot so hopefully they are both rotting in Hell, together unhappily ever after.
Jeremy Bentham coined one of the best aphorisms…
“Nonsense on Stilts”
Which can be applied to much of the material currently available that has people rushing down rabbit holes of conspiracy thinking.
Weekend at Bernie’s?
Maybe because Scruton died in 2020?
But it’s true to point out that the intellectual firepower of the Right is in a state of apparently terminal decline, just as the capacity of the British ruling class to actually govern the joint has disappeared.
Snap – posted at the same time as Lee.
Brilliant writing Maeve, you keep exceeding your previous best…!!
Rich and delicious. What a cavalcade of clowns that show brought together.
I wonder if the AFP took notes of attendees for future treason and fraud investigations.
Maeve is certainly inspired, huge fan, but sometimes I get the feeling she hits submit while the red mist is still present… It can be hard to parse her exact meaning sometimes when the grammar gets a bit sloppy here and there.
Wow!
I thought no one despised the little rodent more than I did!
I have clearly been usurped!
And far more eloquently with much less profanity than I could muster on “the unflushable turd”.
Keen to compete in any JWH hating carnival.
I third the motion !
And me, the lying little rodent should be handed over to the International Court for crimes against humanity during the illegal Iraq fiasco.
I can remember a story printed in the SMH. Two guys are drinking outside one of the early openers at the Quay. One of them notices a guy in a green and gold tracksuit accompanied by numerous secret service agents. He says to his pal, “Who’s the guy in the tracksuit ?”. His friend replies
“That’s the Prime Minister, John Howard”. The first guy says “What a wanker “
At the very least he could have worn camouflage. Indeed a wnker.
By the way, descriptive writing at its best Maeve.
Wonderful descriptive article, Maeve. I see someone wants “balance” – I’m not sure why as there is nothing redeeming about this lot – including Morrison and Abbott strutting their stuff with their ideological mates. What would you say in their defence? any of them? All losers – exactly as you describe.
The most appropriate balance I could think of is for them to be balancing on a balance pole slung over the ship’s side.
I nearly lost my dinner when I saw BoJo the rapacious and Smirko the dud touring Israeli settlers attacked by Hamas.
I suppose they have a likeness in Netanyahu, birds of a feather and such and so forth.
No sympathy for the bombed, survivors who are being starved and deprived of water, the innocent children of Gaza?
No expression or reservations regarding Israeli tactics??
Yes, that would be right.