Ben Eltham has a wrap up of the week in politics at New Matilda. It’s certainly fair to say that it certainly didn’t go all the Coalition’s way. What surprises me about the commentary we’ve seen in the lead up to and after the resumption of Parliament is some sort of default assumption that Tony Abbott would release his climate change policy, and happily elope with the voters, and that’s the last we’d hear of politics in an election year. Dennis Shanahan is, as always, indicative:
THE Rudd government has an unhealthy obsession with Tony Abbott’s obsessions. As parliament prepares to resume on Tuesday for the first sitting in an election year, some Labor ministers are spending so much time reinforcing adverse stereotypes of the new Liberal leader they run the double risk of appearing to be in a panic and of actually validating his policies and leadership.
KEVIN Rudd’s emissions trading scheme is dead but he can’t let it go. Politically he should shift ground to alternative action on climate change, blame Tony Abbott for the failure of a scheme previously favoured by Liberal leaders, and use the global failure to agree on a concerted plan as a reprieve before the election.
There’s some sort of bizarre alternate reality here, where the Opposition is constantly at the centre of events, and any sort of response which doesn’t play to the ‘media narrative’ from the Government is somehow electoral poison.
It’s just nuts. I suspect, in part, it derives from a belief that if the Liberals could unite behind one leader, all would be plain sailing from there on in. In fact, as one week of Barnaby-isms demonstrates, even without leadership speculation, they’re still shambolic. I think there’s still some sort of weird assumption that the Liberals are the natural party of government, and that the electorate are finally waking up to the mistake made in 2007; hence Labor is represented as being panic stricken after a single poll where their two party preferred vote is 52-48. (John Howard’s first term government, by contrast, spent a large part of the time behind in the polls.)
So we also get a bizarre perception that Labor is some sort of immovable object, locked in behind last year’s politics, and unable to shape the political landscape. This is reinforced by constant generalisation on the basis of anecdote – “voters are concerned by debt and deficit”, “Rudd is untrustworthy”, “climate change skepticism is on the increase”, very little of which has much support in any relevant polling. And the descent of Rudd’s own approval rating from its stellar heights is seen as an avatar of doom, without any particular attempt to correlate it with the party vote.
All very odd.
Like I said early in the week, watch the political narrative change.
Shanahan will doubtless be devestated when the Government is returned at the next election.
Trying to get a policy on climate change that did not involve an emissions trading scheme or a carbon tax was always going to involve either Government expenditure (hit the taxpayers) or regulation that would push the costs on to consumers.
A policy which hits the taxpayers and is designed to remind voters of what a National Party porkbarrel looks like was going to be a difficult sell.
Getting Barnaby thinking outloud on reductions in Government expenditure and mentiong overseas aid was a bonus that tony didn’t need.
Curiously overseas aid is one issue on which “conservative” churches that Tony is trying to cultivate, are quite strongly locked in behind. A definite own goal really.
And who was the genius who lined Tony up to go to Ainslie? Canberra inner north has a green vote of around 20% in addition to the usual ALP suspects. Great chance he was going to get aggressively bailed up.
I wait with (not too much) hope that Insiders on Sunday will look through the “bad” poll and bring some sense to the debate. Unfortunately (for newspapers and TV programs), the juggernaught Rudd Govt. is not an interesting story, so they are forced to sensationalise.
What interests me, Alex, is not the desire to sensationalise, but how it all gets wrapped up in a coherent story which is at increasing variance with reality. We saw the same thing in 2007.
I think there are a few things going on with the general commentary and it comes from the fact in my view that the government is not actually ‘playing’ politics ; they are deadly serious and for the first time in my experience I recognize a government that is made up of people who have the intellect and vision to go far beyond what the average journalist can hope to consume in a world of diminishing concentration spans are able to consume so they retreat to the standard pap.
Again I don’t see the government playing – and the Greens as well as the Coalition are still operating under the same code I think was established even with Hawke, Keating and Howard where negotiation and deal making was done with compromise as valuable component of any outcome – the Rudd, Wong, Gillard strategy uses compromise as a tool you engage only when it will give you the outcome you originally sort.
It truly is a beauty to behold.
Instructive as well was the collective failure of econ punditry on the RB’s rate rise that wasn’t, dealt with by Steven Long here.
It’s not a huge new insight but it seems that pundits end up chasing their own tails if left unmolested by events.
I can see what Dennis is trying to do. It’s similar to most of the media narrative of the past week. No matter how shambolic Abbott and Joyce come across in interviews (as on the ABC earlier this week) it’s then reported as sensible and strong rhetoric when faced with Rudd’s reponse.
This leads to an odd sort of unease when we keep hearing something that doesn’t match up with our memories of the event. Meanwhile the great majority going about their lives hears the five second grabs and parses it (oh even the pro ALP ABC says Tony makes more sense than Rudd so it must be true) which will ultimately start to move the polls.
For some of us it’s like being in a political version of Invasion of the Body Snatchers or the Stepford Wives.
It is good that others have also been puzzled by the commentariat’s attitude towards the government and the government in particular. The issue for me is not that Rudd gets a particularly negative response. I think that all governments should have more scrutiny than oppositions in many ways, (after all they got more resources, and they have been elected to govern, and they have to perform). But that I thought that Howard, especially in its later terms had a much better positive commentariat.
Perhaps it was because unlike Rudd, that was elected from a fairly ‘easy’ path (diplomat, policy head, shadow foreign minister) Howard really did the hard yards (being pillored when leader of the opposition in the 80′s, ‘Mr. 16%’ etc.) and maybe during his popular period some in the commentariat were more well disposed to him.
Yes, but they’ve been looking pretty shabby on the grabs on the news, too, tssk.
I know the dominant discourse is to attribute political motive to journos, and no doubt most have them, but I often wonder if it’s in part driven by Galtung & Ruge principles.
What is newsworthy, according to Galtung & Ruge is makked by
a) the concerns of elite pople
b) the concerns of people from elite countries
c) matters that are negative
d) events that can be presented in terms of the actions of individuals
Political commentary obviously maps especially well to these drivers, and if one can assert that the contest is close, then the coverage becomes even more serious. Big things are at stake.
If you follow sport you rarely hear the experts saying this teasm/indivdual is hopeless/has no chance because that’s a killer for the audience. No matter who the favourite is, or how solidly the favouritism is based, there’s always a consensus that “X can win” and “you can’t write X off” and so forth. You can’t comment on the contest while spitting on its significance.
I don’t believe Abbott has a hope in Hades of winning the next election or any other election to Federal or State office. But for a variety of reasons, nobody in the political class will say that, will they?
Doug@2: “And who was the genius who lined Tony up to go to Ainslie? Canberra inner north has a green vote of around 20% in addition to the usual ALP suspects. Great chance he was going to get aggressively bailed up.”
Yes, wasn’t that hilarious. The inner north of Canberra has always been solid left, and will probably go completely green next election.
ACT Lib Senator Gary Humphries’ pained expression was visible in the background, so I guess he was the one ordered to find the only Liberal shopkeeper for miles, at the Ainslie IGA, for the walkabout.
And of course the woman who let fly, Kate Jarvis, is now the local hero, with every public servant in town claiming, that’s my mum…
tskk@7 – perhaps the unease you speak of is the effects of what seems like an attempt at a mass indoctrination program apparently being vigorously pursued by the Opposition and its supporters in the media. I shake my head sometimes at the cognitive dissonence experienced watching news programs and reading media.
“The bizarre alternative reality..where the opposition is constantly at the centre of events” noted above is shown clearly in t.v. newsclips where the Labor Party is purportedly the subject of the news item but the cutaway is to a picture of Tony Abbott or another member of the Opposition and the comment is sought from the Liberal Party. Bizarre to say the least!
Alex White@3 – you must be a supreme optimist if you are expecting any fairhanded reporting from Insiders on Sunday. Good luck to you but I’m not holding my breath expecting any change from past experience.
The AFR is reporting today that Labor is pouring resources into 25 marginal seats (16 in NSW and QLD alone), so the perception that the Government is now facing some difficulties is not simply a figment of Shanahan’s imagination.
I also find the idea on this site that this is not relates to CPRS, and that the Australian public in Feb 2010 is still roughly where it was in Feb 2009 on the issue, something of a naive perspective. This is especially when it is combined with the view that the MySchool web site is somehow an electoral liability for the government.
The story on marginal seats is interesting – it shows that the government is not going to take anything for granted. I also wonder whether there is not a tactical attempt to suck the coalition into putting resources into those seats and not focus on defening their marginal seats?
Is it an attempt to mess with Tony’s mind?
Anything’s possible I suppose.
At the same time, I think that Tony Abbott’s apparent randomness is causing Kevin the Linear Thinker some difficulties, at least for the moment.
The Maverick/Crazy Like A Fox theory.
Can’t see much evidence of it so far myself.
Abbott’s been bogged down horribly in his first week, trying to defend his climate scheme from a pouncing government and trying to wave away Barnaculiod’s beatnik brainfarts. The line he was hoping to run with has been compromised already while Rudd and the government are cranking up the CPRS hard-sell.
Leinad, I think you are right in general, but wrong on CPRS. If Rudd could work out how to sneak this dog off behind the shed and put it down without everyone noticing, I think Gillard, Tanner et. al. would be having the Opposition on toast.
Gillard and Tanner don’t look particularly flustered as of now.
The CPRS is a dog from the perspective actually doing something on climate change but it’s saleable if they can keep up the “three simple things” mantra and hammering the Coalition’s chimeric alternative.
On the contrary Terry, I believe that they have them on toast anyway, and that they plan, after chewing for a while, to spit them out.
This issue will be a running sore within the conservative camp, especially if Rudd can work out a deal weith the Greens + Xenophon + one other. Even if they don’t though after the election in July-August, the last toehold of relevance for the Libs — the senate — will be gone. Then it will be on for young and old in Liberal-land.
It’s simple really. For the media, it is a better story if it is a real contest.
It would not do to say at this stage that the 2010 election is a foregone conclusion – the only question being the size of the ALP majority. The journos, for their own sake, need to play up the prospect of a tight battle, a victory for the underdog and a change in the national narrative.
Put simply, they are bored with the prospect of another three years of Rudd. By contrast, Abbott seems exciting and new and unpredictable. He offers the prospect of better copy, more conflict, more colour and more things for people to talk about.
In the end, that’s what “newsworthiness” is. You want people talking about what’s in the paper/on the radio or TV that day. And once you have decided that THIS is the story, you don’t go back. You’ve already made the investment. So it feeds on itself.
Internally in newspapers, journos quickly discover that their copy is more likely to be prominently positioned if their work fits in the pre-determined narrative.
I think a key cause is the extraordinary insularity of the Canberra press gallery. They seem to primarily communicate and socialise with each other, which reinforces their narrow perspective. This is exemplified by shows like Insiders, which consists almost entirely of the press gallery talking to itself, and by Fran Kelly’s regular morning interviews with Michelle Grattan.
The idea of political journalists interviewing each other to find out what’s going on is pure solipsism. I find the fact that they actually do it just mind-boggling – it’s beyond satire.
That said, IMHO the influence of the press gallery narrative on the polls is negligible.
Shanahan’s article is strange, even quixotic. Any balanced assessment of the week would demonstrate that the Coalition went backwards. Barnaby’s speecch to the NPC was a big opportunity for him to prove to a sceptical press gallery that he was going to approach his new responsibilities with a newfound sense of gravitas …. instead he confirmed everyones’ suspicions that he is completely incapable of staying on message.
>
Abbott must be wondering how he can manage the next Joycean outburst when it inevitably occurs …
Tim Macknay@21: “The idea of political journalists interviewing each other to find out what’s going on is pure solipsism. I find the fact that they actually do it just mind-boggling – it’s beyond satire.”
Comment of the week for me.
The Shanahan piece contained some analytical gold which confirms why he is such a highly paid Canberra political analyst:
Now why on earth would they want to do that?!
I think Dennis has been carried away with imported ideas that we are really a
centercentre-right nation, that the Coalition has a super minority in the upper house, etc.Doesn’t he understand the mechanics of the threat of the double disolution to all that he holds near and dear? Shit, what about that 10% possibility that Turnbull bolts the Libs and forms his own party?
Funny how a commentator obsessed with gaming out every political scenario ignores the ones that totally screw the coming of Abbottland.
“Put simply, they are bored with the prospect of another three years of Rudd.”
Well how come they never seemed to get bored with the priince of boredom, John Howard?
That claim is not even wrong. There’s no “portrayal” necessary – because that’s exactly what Abbott is.
Mark, as to what may explain the strange disjunct between pundit-speak and reality, I am reminded of the quip, I forget who said it first: “journalists are the hardest-working lazy people in the world”.
I think they just don’t bother to leave HQ to find out what’s happening in voter land!
You sense that Malcolm Turnbull is going to find it hard to sit quietly in the H of R for the next 6-8 months and let all of this dross pass by from his colleagues. I think he might be the most interesting person in the Parliament in 2010.
“A policy which hits the taxpayers and is designed to remind voters of what a National Party porkbarrel looks like was going to be a difficult sell.”
And the Auditor General’s report showing that JWH had his hand right up the pig’s arse was artfully buried on the back pages of the Oz. Brilliant!
“hears the five second grabs and parses it (oh even the pro ALP ABC says Tony makes more sense than Rudd so it must be true) which will ultimately start to move the polls.”
The only problem being that they also show this sinister pair moving and talking. Those who have seen Blue Velvet recogise the unsettling effect this has. For those that haven’t it is a new and unwelcome sensation.
“I also find the idea on this site that this is not relates to CPRS, and that the Australian public in Feb 2010 is still roughly where it was in Feb 2009″
I agree that the public opinion has shifted slightly with regard to the Rudd plan. However it’s not a game breaker and I think the visit of the Marty Feldman look-alike has led to a little bit of trouser over excitement among some of our erstwhile scribes. Move along nothing to see here.
The Mad Monk meets Lord Monckton, perhaps?
“beatnik brainfarts”
Gold Jerry gold.
Oh come on Mark, we’ve seen this before.
This is what Bob Carr did to the NSW Liberals – cowed them by calling them “irresponsible”, because their memories of government were still fresh and the worst thing anyone can be while in Government is Irresponsible – the opposition became paralysed, could not offer a coherent alternative to the incumbents, and were duly thrashed.
This is what John Howard did to the Beazley-led Labor – cowed them by calling them “irresponsible”, because their memories of government were still fresh and the worst thing anyone can be while in Government is Irresponsible – the opposition became paralysed, could not offer a coherent alternative to the incumbents, and were duly thrashed.
This is what Peter Beattie did (all right, enough with copy & paste), even after Joh was literally dead.
This is how you beat Oppositions – puff them full of their own self-importance and then push them over into the mud. Repeat until the opposition gets sick of it and changes tack in a way that you can’t follow (as Rudd did to Howard, as Bartlett did to Carpenter, as Redmond is doing to Rann and O’Farrell to whoever it is this week).
“Great big new tax” That’s all they’ve got to run with, apart from the occasional “Refugee invasion” apoplexy.
Only the One Nation demographic responds to these dog-whistles, and that is a 16 percent voting bloc from my observations, but these primitive sentiments have suffered electoral fragmentation due to the rise of various competing fringe lunatic organisations.
You live by the sword, you die by the sword
“…as Redmond is doing to Rann…
Um, Redmond is not doing anything to Rann. Unless you figure the waitress and the former husband belting Rann over the face with a rolled up magazine counts.
Oh, and that absolutely priceless Godwin video doing the circuit at the moment. But I don’t think Isobel would admit to it, despite its brilliance.
My wife – intelligent, educated, coal miner’s daughter that she is struggles to understand why anyone would vote Liberal, let alone vote for that evil little creep John Howard. For some odd reason some of the above comments remind me of her problem.
I would hate to see Abbot win for a range of reasons but this doesn’t mean that he isn’t a threat.
You know, just a general point: scepticism has a very proud and long tradition in intellectual inquiry.
But when you haven’t got a CLUE about a highly technical area, scepticism then becomes a form of arrogant, indeed, militant stupidity.
I mean, seriously, the GALL of totally clueless, untrained amateurs, puffing themselves up and announcing they are officially “skeptical” about the conclusions of huge numbers of highly trained scientists.
I can believe I almost got acclimatised to that insane spectacle. Sit down you idiots! You’re embarrassing yourselves!!
You are showing your social distance there, LE.
“This is how you beat Oppositions – puff them full of their own self-importance and then push them over into the mud.”
Very adept. The Kursk salient.
I guess so, Wbb!
The other relevant thing is: scientists are trained, drilled even, to subject one another’s work to scrutiny, to be skeptical of it, as a disciplinary instinct, which then gets reinforced by competition for scarce grant funds.
They don’t hunt in packs, in other words. If they’re together on an issue, its becuase they actually can’t disprove another’s findings, despite trying to.
Wake up to yourselves, ‘sceptics’. You dont even deserve the label – that has to be earnt.
‘Mindless contrarians’? Sure. Chocks away with that one. Its all yours.
@13 – Terry, it would be a rare election where a party didn’t allocate resources to defending its own marginals. That story kinda exemplified what I was saying – I can’t remember the headline exactly but the whole tone of it was “Labor in trouble!”. I thought the quote from Antony Green was the most interesting (and right at the end of a long piece) – he more or less said there’s not much chance of Labor losing.
Did anybody else catch Barnaby’s claim on Tuesday in the Senate that he was going to do Rudd over slowly on CPRS, like Keating did to Hewson on GST? For me, that was the most hilarious thing he said all week.
Mark – Hartcher in the SMH today admitted the Coalition have no chance. Viz an earlier thread about Joyce getting away with self-humiliation, Hartcher went at him hard too. It was quite refreshing! (link)
Mark @ 4 ‘at increasing variance with reality’…not really; ShamIam aside it looks to be business as usual, no shock just the same old same old h…eg
‘This latest disaster has renewed attention on DEWHA’s performance. But it has also placed unprecedented scrutiny on ABSA, the sole accreditation agency for Green Loans assessors..The home insulation rebate program has been plagued by rorts and safety concerns following the deaths of four young installers…In fact, it seems that no one has control of these aspects of the program…While many aspects of the scheme appear to have been poorly thought through, one aspect was planned with forensic detail – the spin.’
http://www.theage.com.au/business/green-scheme-sunk-by-rorts-and-bungling-20100205-nisg.html
Of course Mr Abbott holding Mr Rudd to account on this and poor Penny’s Air Kevin sanga is as you know quite another matter.
Interesting to see Mr Keane @ Crikey (Conroy and the lesbian cabal that killed NBN) point the bone…
‘The real culprit here is never named by the ANAO. It’s not Stephen Conroy, it’s his boss, Kevin Rudd..’
Interesting times but no shock or horror, just business as usual. Situation normal.
Seamless transition. r to R.
“The biggest irony is that despite the hundreds of thousands of home assessments, the actual Green Loans have been a fizzer, with just 1000 taken up.”
codger, as I mentioned elsewhere that article is nonsense and might have been written by the opposition environment spokesperson. See the above last few lines of the piece as an example.
It is only very recently that large financial institutions have come on board to administer the loans. Indeed, only 1000 loans have been taken up because the bloody thing has just started, not because it is “a fizzer”.
I think the Piping Shrike has it right (see his blog). Federal Labor has done away with old politics (based on the control of “Ricardo’s factors of production” – land, capital, labour), and is onto the new, if you will, information-economy-based ‘technocrat age’.
The populus and Federal ALP have moved on. The commentariat & the conservative parties are still playing old politics. Thus, the irrelavance.
The conservative parties “base” is at the upper end of the age spectrum & is increasingly less urban. Thus, their shrinking support.
Will be interesting to watch the trends play out this year on Cassidy’s “The Insiders”
joe2 the article is by RUTH WILLIAMS AND MATHEW MURPHY; I’m sure they will address your ‘nonsense’ complaint. As to the management, the spin & the ‘fizzer’ well…fair comment I would say.
@45 – josh, yes saw that piece from Hartcher – good stuff. Nice to see a few people prepared to buck the press gallery consensus.
The title of this article by Barnaby looks like he’s referring to himself in the third person, which doesn’t help.
Referring to yourself in the third person is always a bad sign. Its like that guy at the ARIAs who kept referring to himself in the third person when he won an award – “The Steele had a big year”, “The Steele is excited to win this ARIA” etc.
Ville@44
Maybe someone should have asked Barnaby if he meant that in a sexual way …;-)
Andrew Bolt claims Rudd’s a coward not to appear on “the only true and balanced political program on TV” [Insiders] and Barrie pleaded with him to back off “while negotiations are continuing”. Smell a rat there?
It is, of course, nonsense that Rudd would have any fear of an interview on that show. Cassidy is not too much of a challenge. I figure Kev just likes to annoy those presenting and involved in such a squawk of puffed up, partisan, rubbish.
Any program that would even consider Bolt as a semi-regular deserves studied disdain.
joe2, as compared to Sunrise?
“joe2, as compared to Sunrise?”
Oh, Sunrise is inherently balanced, Terry, specialising in just the sort of rigorous and incisive questioning that puts the PM under real pressure. Almost up there with Rove live. Not at all the sort of puffed-up, partisan rubbish in which the ABC is prone to indulge.
Sunrise is nearly as incisive as Talkin’ about my generation which has Joe Hockey, the would be treasurer, parading around like someone auditioning for the Footy Show.
Can he really believe this helps his career ambitions? You do wonder.
Bolt’s claim to be a sceptic is also a falsehood re AGW. He has consistently, over a number of years, opposed the science at every opportunity and in every forum, to me that’s denialist in the extreme.
Bolt’s comment on Insider was so disingenuous that he was deliberately baiting the blogosphere and the Twitterati, who then engage in knee-jerk defences of Kevin Rudd, on the basis that he needs to be protected from Bolt, and is not playing his own political games.
if you know the Eminem track “Without Me”, you can get a sense of where Bolt is coming from.
“Sunrise is nearly as incisive as Talkin’ about my generation which has Joe Hockey, the would be treasurer, parading around like someone auditioning for the Footy Show.”
Well Joe jointly pioneered the whole “gidday Kochie!, gidday Mel!’ pollie light entertainment genre with Kev. It’s a pre-ordained slippery slope to pink tutus and Dancing Queen.
“Well how come they never seemed to get bored with the priince of boredom, John Howard?” Adrian @26
Might have something to do with the fact that they could still get plenty of good copy from the outrageous assertions and stuffups of Dolly, Andrews, Ruddock, Abbott and the Bishops while they were in government.
I notice that the narrative is continued in today’s Age with a lead story suggesting (1) a reversal in Rudd’s popularity vis-a-vis Abbott (2) the coalition climate change policy is more popular than the Government’s.
I agree with the general theme here that it’s all a bit too boring and predictable for the insiders – so they’ve got to try and set an agenda and assume a serious contest.
A pity really, because they could still get on to some newsworthy points critical of the Government such as the fiasco about net censorship.
Rudd should make a “secret” agreement with Gilliard over transfer of leadership. That will give the media something exciting to talk about for the next decade, but which keeps the spotlight on the government.
Don Wigan, I’ve stopped taking The Age after their outragous stunt of making fun of Lord Moncton’s eyes.
Making fun of how someone looks is the measure of someone who can’t debate the issues.
Tssk said
By contrast with Miscount Monckton who simply lies, slanders and confabulates wholesale …
Two wrongs do not make a right. The cheap gag at Lord Monckton’s medical problems shames us all.
Sometimes, they do. If one side is cheating, then cheating in ways that leverage the others’ cheat is fair enough.
Monckton is a dangerous loony, and the picture tells this story. Fair enough.
Fair enough tssk, but then Monckton’s incessant lies and distortions shame him. Fair’s fair.
I can’t believe you would support that! Honest arguement should be enough to defeat his points.
Making fun of how he looks instead looks desperate and bully like.
Have you considered, Tssk, that it might just be difficult to take a picture of Monckton mush without it being offensive to those who want it to be?
I like Miscount Monckton. Gold.
If you believed ABC 2 TV News this morning, Labor was so far down in the polls it was going to lose the Federal election. Ch
Kosshie put me right though. Labor is ahead 2 party preferred.
joe2, it was picked up by Bolt, Blair and The Insiders. I’d love to show you the original on the Age site but they hurridly changed it.
Too late. They owe Lord Monckton an apology. Regardless of his views.
tssk, have to agree with Fran, but would further add that cartoonists ridicule politicians every day sometimes very cruelly using eyes, nose, lack of hair whatever if it takes to get their message across. Monckton gives no quarter himself in his smart-arse dishonest one liners which belittle scientists of integrity and deserves no concession to what is apparently a non-disabling complaint.
I saw it tssk and thought it quite an artistic photograph.
Blair and Bolt are regular users of the portrait photograph, of individuals they wish to ridicule, for their own purposes. Maybe Andrew is just imagining something sinister in the work because that’s what he does.
Joe 2 Said
Tim Lambert responded as follows:
Monckton in Australia
Nothing good can come from someone who was an adviser to Thatcher. And, as a disabled person I make jokes about my particular disability frequently. While it is a bit of a pain in the bum, being spastic does have certain advantages, eg they’re not game to kick you out of a pub when you’re being outrageous, you can make fun of coppers who accuse you of being stoned when you’re not. (people with cerebral palsy have slightly strange eyes – have you noticed? )
This bloke has put himself on the political stage. Eyes or no eyes, he is barking mad. (Must check out what the Moncktons did in the past. Have a vague recollection that one or saeveral of his ancestors might have made a bit of a splash under the Stuarts and during the English Civil War and the Restoration/Glorious Revolution period.) Maybe being agin ‘em runs in the blood.
Am I the only one who thinks tssk is a concern troll par excellence? Everyone keeps taking the bait.
He may be “a concern troll par excellence“, Tim Macknay, but he’s also our concern troll par excellence.
It might seem like concern trolling but honestly I’d prefer to see Moncton defeated by good arguement rather than mocking. We all get frustrated whn figures on the left are lampooned because of their looks. (Witness how many get around debating Al Gore’s points by just saying he’s fat.)
I think in the case The Age is dead lucky Media watch is still in hiatus.
Joe2: how so?
What blog would be without a resident concern troll to infuriate people like adrian, myself and now you, Tim? Tssk is part of the rickety furniture and he reads Tim and Andrew for everybody else. And so saves them the direct misery .
Ah, I see it now joe2. Carry on.
Tssk said:
Since Monckton’s trade is exclusively in spurious and specious claims, repeated ad nauseum, using good argument would be a case of casting pearls before swine. Good arguments can scarcely be recognised by the Monckton groupies, much less considered.
What is afoot is the non-violent analog of a fist fight, in which each enfages in attempts to force/manipulate the other off message and off ideal image when the sound bytes and pictures go back for reproduction.
Engaging in careful scientific analysis or discussions of comparative public policy would be to offer Monckton just what he wanted for his bully pulpit. The serious people put the audience to slepp or sound like technocrats, while Monckton handwaves and stokes the crowd with stentorian rhetoric about world domination coming closer every time you open your fridge.
Tim probably can’t avoid that happening because the narrative and boilerplate of eltie boffin versus rabble rousing populist insurgent is already in place, but he should at least have a go if he is going to turn up.
Have a go at what? Enabling the concern troll’s derailment of the thread? No thanks.
Hmm Tim …
but he (Tim Lambert Not Macknay) should at least have a go if he is going to turn up.
Deary me … I was talking about the debate at the Hilton not your shot at TSSK
Fair enough Fran – your earlier comment could have been a bit clearer.
The point of concern is how this plays out in the public eye. And now the media narrative is “lefties mock disease suffered by old man.”
It was well played as The Insiders showed with Andrew Bolt coming out of it as the defender of the weak being constantly harranged.
The point is it has managed to derail the debate. And all for a cheap shot.
@Paul Burns
Not sure how closely this Monckton is related to other ennnobled Moncktons. He’s only the third Viscount in his line, and his grandfather got his Viscountcy for being a useful lawyer to the Court during the Abdication Crisis of Edward re Mrs Simpson. So compared to other peers of the realm he is definitely a parvenu.
New rich? Oh, well that explains it. They’re always crude.
At least I don’t have to go trawling for geneologies, and cross checking his ancestors in history books. Much thanks.
Paul, I presume that they were probably prep/boarding school rich for quite a few generations before the lawyer grandfather got the chance to do the Court of St James a service worthy of the coronet.
Oh, landed gentry or some such things. I’ve got to the point when I see people like Monckton spouting off, that these were the people who lost the first British Empire because they were too pissed on port or claret to realise what was happening.
News Ltd has shown such a touching concern for Kevin Rudd over the years: trawling through his childhood, the nightclub stuff, utegate, lots of other little slimy stuff.
But Labor even thinks of laying a finger on Abbott – over legitimate questions of policy – and there are lectures about “obsessions”.
If Labor was in the kind of shambles the Coalition is in over global warming or had a finance spokesperson making a fool out of himself on a daily basis, how do you think the media would react? Everyone – the ABC and Fairfax included – would be merciless.
Double standard doesn’t even begin to describe it.
Its true Ginja. I cant help but notice there’s full coverage of the US ambivalence over an ETS scheme; but bugger all mention that the EU – a larger economy than the US – has emissions trading, and also committed to 20% cuts by 2020.
If i didn’t know better, Id almost think the media had an agenda of their own.
Yep Lefty E, you’d never guess from the media that the EU has a much bigger population than the US – of the order of around 200 million people! – and is responsible for about a third of world economic activity.
Japan, too, apparently is chopped liver.
As always, the Murdoch monopoly and the Libs play on ignorance of these basic facts.
Well Moncton was featured on Media Watch last night…I’ll leave you guys to watch and enjoy. They mustn’t have had enough time left over for the Age’s insensitive treatment.
Maybe they are just smart enough not fall for the Andrew, cry baby, sympathy collector ruse, Tssk.
If Media Watch is correct Moncton might be in a ton of trouble. Defamation is one thing…but one place you don’t want to defame someone is in Oz.