Angus Taylor, heir unapparent
The Liberals are about to hit a new rock bottom, and his name is Angus Taylor.
This may well be the week that Angus Taylor is elected the 17th federal leader of the Liberal Party. There are many afflictions I have wished upon that organisation – and, indeed, many have since come to pass – but none quite so demeaning.
This is a profound lesson in rock bottoms. Just when you think your personal fortunes can't get more subterranean, you'll find a new trap door. We've all been there! The same goes for institutions. Even as the control of a once-great movement has passed from a lying marketing executive to a pitiless Queensland copper to a travel-rorting numerologist, there can always still be farther to fall.
It wouldn't quite be fair to characterise Sussan Ley as the Liz Truss of Australian politics, because unlike the Lettuce Lady, Ley inherited nothing to squander. She is plainly hopeless, but then what chance did she ever have? The Sky News brigade – which took a decade to fully denude the Liberal Party of any mainstream support before running off with Pauline Hanson anyway – had written Ley off as a failure within 15 minutes of her election as leader.
In fact, her failure only came later. She has twice fumbled her golden opportunity to win back urban voters by begging the Nationals for a reconciliation instead of telling them to go f--- themselves. David Littleproud is a bag of hammers, born to be forgotten – and he's not even the worst of them. You cannot operate as a permanent political hostage to the numskulls of Nowhere Plains and then expect the Australian people to consider you a serious candidate for the office of prime minister.
With the Coalition's primary vote (19 per cent) now at its lowest ebb in the history of polling and running third to Labor and One Nation (26 per cent), the Liberals are validly panicked and grasping for a saviour. How they could possibly believe Angus Taylor fits that description is beyond me.
