The Daily Telegraph this morning reports the latest moves in dumping Gillard as prime minister and reinstalling Kevin Rudd as Labor leader. It's on, and Gillard is not expected to see the month out.
Oh, it's been delicious watching various Labor luminaries squirming today, lashing out and confirming all our worst impressions of the party. They've been manufacturing excuses, denying everything and throwing up smokescreens. The only thing they haven't done is fall back to their default position of trying to blame Tony Abbott.
It's been great theatre, but of main concern are the attempts to blame the News Ltd papers for daring to report the truth. "Da Mair-doch Prairse as er disgrairse!" moaned glorified pommy shop steward Senator Doug Cameron in that tortured, grating, whining accent of his. Well, the only one who is a "disgrairse" is Cameron himself, coming from a militant union, crawling up to Labor faction leaders, getting the numbers and being given a lifetime sinecure in the Senate where he can just sit on his arse doing nothing and pocketing millions in salary and superannuation.
The Murdoch newspapers are the great satan according to the Labor party because they have dared to scrutinise the Labor government, unlike the unquestioning cheer squad in the Fairfax broadsheets which are undoubtedly the worst newspapers in the western world. Labor ministers and The Greens pounced with glee on the News of the World phone hacking scandal, trying to link News Ltd papers here with the problems in the UK despite the fact that News Australia is virtually autonomous with its own directors and senior management.
The hypocrisy of the Labor party concerning News is breathtaking. They conveniently forget that the reason why News controls 70% of newspapers in this country is because of the Labor party itself. Paul Keating in 1986 changed the media ownership laws to enable News to take over the Herald and Weekly Times because HWT's papers had always been arch conservative. "At least Rupert's flexible. His papers have occasionally supported us" said one Labor member at the time. Similarly, Bob Brown from The Greens was happy when The Australian opposed the Franklin River dam project in 1982/83, but as soon as they put The Greens under scrutiny they are "the hate media" and Brown forces the government to set up a media enquiry with the ultimate aim of breaking up News Ltd and forcing them to sell their newspapers.
Meanwhile we can all ponder just how low the Labor party has sunk. A disunited rabble unfit for government at any level, rancid and rotting in the midday sun. Putting Kevin Rudd in charge again will be an act of desperation. The only good thing to come from it will be the smashing of the alliance with The Greens and the hope that at the next election Labor will join the Libs and Nats in refusing to give their preferences to The Greens.
Gillard is now dead meat and Rudd will be an interim leader handling the transition to the opposition benches. Hopefully the voters will have finally learned their lesson and will keep Labor out of government for at least a generation.
