I wonder has Albrechtsen actually listened to Working Class Man? As I remember it it’s about self-reliance, masculinity and a struggle for dignity (and blue denim).

Exactly. It’s a song about the dignity of labour, not class war. I suspect Albrechtsen does know this, and thats why she dosn’t like it. The idea of the dignity of labour has been a strong one throughout Australia’s history. It is also an idea that Janet Albrechtsen’s worldview, which treats labour as just another commoditty to be traded on an open market, can’t handle.

I guess. One can say the same about Jones. You also have to be careful when you see the Aus runnign a different line to the Daily Terror of the Horrald-Sun. They are all News Ltd.

I read that thing by Quigley. Could. Not. Believe. It. But still, can’t help but think that jacket was a mistake – especially since it will be played over and over and over on the news until the election and beyond. She looks so much nicer in pale colours anyway …

On the thumbs-up from Murdoch, the parallels are also striking. The Sun’s front page headline when Labour were elected in 1997 was ‘It was the Sun wot won it’. That could be the kind of re-allignment happening now in the Aussie tabloids. I don’t know how much influence Murdoch had on Blair’s subsequent policies, but there was probably an influence on the way that Blair and his media coterie went about governing the country – through soundbites and spin, catchy but vacuuous policy snippets, and brutal character assassinations (or in the case of David Kelly, perhaps a real assassination).

There’s nothing wrong with Labor becoming ‘New Labor’, just as long as it doesn’t mean what it has in Britain – the presidentialisation of the PM’s office, and the granting of massive powers to spin doctors who deliver style over substance, and are completely unaccountable. Also, Blair’s personality cult was balanced by sound economic management from Brown (except for his madcap nuclear ambitions). Who is Labor’s Gordon Brown?