Mr Turnbull’s personal position is now the same, or worse, than Brendan Nelson’s when he was replaced as Liberal leader late last year …
– (source)

Last week I poked fun at Malcolm Turnbull’s seemingly-lame attempts to reverse his terribad polling figures by visiting Afghanistan and launching a debt trailer truck. This morning Mr Turnbull’s efforts were revealed to have been effective, leaving me with very serious egg on my face.

Satisfaction with the Leader of the Opposition lifted in the past two weeks after he spent a week overseas visiting Australian troops and a week in Perth attacking the Rudd government’s debt and budget deficit.

[...]

Last weekend, satisfaction with Mr Turnbull rose from 25per cent to 31 per cent, and dissatisfaction fell from 58 per cent to 55 per cent.

I apologise unreservedly to Malcolm Turnbull for ridiculing his campaigning methods.

In unrelated news, Andrew Bolt says that drawing conclusions from “changes that fall even within the margin of error” is “a waste of time and credibility”. What did The Australian ever do to Andrew to deserve such a scathing attack?

Ahhhh, school holidays. You gotta love that feeling when you wake up on a Monday morning in the middle of the year and know you’ve got two lazy weeks while every other sucker is still at work. Thing is, you do tend to get bored during that fortnight if you’re not going away on holiday, so sometimes it’s nice to try and find a casual job to tide you over. With that in mind I got out of bed this morning, brewed a coffee, and got to browsing the job pages of backpacker networking site The Gumtree. And can you imagine my surprise when I found this ad:

It all made sense when I read this:

The Coalition and Malcolm Turnbull have received a devastating blow from the OzCar affair, with 53 per cent of voters saying they have a less favourable impression of the Opposition Leader as a result of it.

Mr Turnbull’s approval rating has plunged a massive 11 points while disapproval soared by 13 points in the Age/Nielsen poll taken on Thursday to Saturday. The Coalition’s two-party vote has slumped five points since May in the wake of Mr Turnbull’s call for Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s resignation, which backfired spectacularly.

Even The Oz is anticipating Malcy’s political death.

Malcolm Turnbull’s political career has been smashed in just one week, and senior Liberals believe there could be moves within the party to remove him as Opposition Leader within days or weeks.

[...]

According to a Newspoll survey, conducted exclusively for The Australian last weekend, satisfaction with Mr Turnbull’s job as Opposition Leader has suffered the single biggest fall in the survey’s 25-year history. His position is now worse than Labor’s Mark Latham ever was and is at, or lower than, the levels of Brendan Nelson when he was dumped as Liberal leader to make way for Mr Turnbull.

Accordingly, the GrodsBook is now open. Leave in comments your prediction for the date on which Malcy will resign or be forced out of the Liberal leadership. The winner, being the person with the closest prediction, will win the Liberal leadership.

Peter Costello blows his own trumpet, effectively declaring his intention to seek leadership.

(Actually, Peter has people to blow his trumpets for him.) “Blow, my pretties! Blow!”

Andrew Bolt breaks his pants.

News flash: Peter Costello is staying on in Higgins. This confirms his intention to become Liberal leader.

Malcolm Turnbull broods, knowing that his chances of ever becoming Prime Minister just dropped through the floor.

“It isn’t fair! I deserve it!”

I bet all you idiots out there think that Malcolm Turnbull is the leader of the Parliamentary Liberal Party. Fools. You’re all dead wrong because the real leader is Andrew Bolt.

Even though Andrew rarely ventures outside his HWT building office in Melbourne, and appears to be a hopelessly biased polemicist journalist rather than a politican, he is in constant communication with his subordinates in the House and the Senate, dispensing advice and orders as required. Bolt talks to them.

I have warned senior Liberals for some time that Rudd would probably delay his ludicrous scheme until after the election…

And they talk to him.

Bishop is just one of three Liberals – two of them former frontbenchers – who have contacted me over the past 12 hours to say the public no longer knows what the party under Turnbull stands for.

Thing is, can you imagine the foaming-at-the-mouth outrage if another columnist so blatantly flagged their political bias towards the ALP? You’d be able to hear the shrieking from Darwin.

The clown is dead! Long live the clown!

Thanks for all the memories, Bren-doc. It sure was a blast.

Vote ‘1′ Dr Brendan (I’m a doctor) Nelson

1) His forehead is unnaturally large.

2) He tries really hard to defend conservative values but fails miserably.

3) He gets selective amnesia after horse trading conversations with Steve Fielding.

4) He blames latte-sipping teachers for making kids reluctant to join the army.

5) He performed a spectacular backflip with triple pike over the indigenous apology.

6) He is an embarrassing, try-hard guitar tragic.

7) He is terribly hypocritical by attacking Kevin Rudd for missing question time during the same week that Alexander Downer skipped QT for a long lunch.

8) He is less popular than herpes.

9) He introduced the unique concept of the pub test to Australian politics.

10) He makes rooly, rooly interesting home moofies.

11) His listening tour of Australia was more entertaining than every episode of Flight Of The Conchords run back-to-back.

12) He is a man of the people.

13) You watch.

14) He has a plan.

15) He doesn’t have to, so he doesn’t need to.

16) He’s just an ordinary man.

17) He is in possession of specialised equipment.

18) He has implemented the Cate Blanchett test.

19) He tackles the big issues.

20) He has perfected the Solar Panel Defence and the Hockey Distraction.

21) He gets straight to the point.

22) He makes The 7.30 Report look like slaughter time at the Colosseum.

23) He develops policy on whiteboards.

24) He has Vietnam war flashbacks.

25) He is a trucker.

Trust me to be at another humiliating GroupThinkFC defeat* (3-8; congratulations to champion GTFC vs. Weezers tipster, Keri) while the exciting news of a Liberal Party leadership spill floods the airways. If Nelson does get pegged tomorrow then brokenleftleg will be our champion Nelson’s demise tipster. However, I’m hoping like all hell for one of three outcomes:

a) Turnbull is thoroughly rebuked by the party and suffers terminal ego cancer, and GrodsCorp continues to have Nelson as blog fodder for the foreseeable future;
b) Costello is voted in by a reasonable majority but refuses to accept leadership unless he receives 100% support; or
c) Wilson Tuckey gets up.

Whatever happens it’s going to be an interesting day. Bring it on!

UPDATE: The Age has confirmed that Julie Bishop, Tony Abbott and Joe Hockey are all out of the running for leader.

Joe Hockey, Tony Abbott and deputy Liberal leader Julie Bishop have all been pegged as potential leadership aspirants.

* I didn’t even get the chance to grab an opposition player’s balls because I was in too much pain after my balls got slammed by an opposition player’s hip.

Next week is the release of Peter Costello’s memoirs. The Daily Telegraph (I know, I know, I was just looking at their website) has “obtained key details” of the 400-page book.

Apparently, Costello claims that he was given a “wink and a nod” on five or six occasions, that Mr Howard would stand aside, during the tenure of their partnership.

Five or six occasions? And you never had the guts to challenge Howard to keep his promise after each occasion, Mr Costello? Didn’t you realise that after the first and second broken promises that Howard NEVER intended to honour them?!

Incredible. This reflects just as badly on Costello as it does on Howard, if not more.

As for Costello contesting the next Liberal leadership – come on! Does anyone really think he’s going to do that now? He never did when he had the chance, especially on “five or six occasions”, and never will. He ain’t got no ticker.

I’d love to know which goose asked this question of Brendan Nelson (who’s come out of hiding to non-answer some questions while overseas.)

QUESTION: Is it upsetting for example you know there’s now a Facebook page trying to recruit Peter Costello to the leadership? Is that sort of thing personally insulting?

Oh, for fuck’s sake. In terms of quality journalism that’s up there with “[insert search term here] returns 100,000 results on Google” and “look at this dumb thing that some dumb person has put on eBay”. And anyway, there are five different Facebook groups that support Costello’s ascension to the leadership and Prime Ministership.

That’s a massive grand total of 197 people on Facebook who want Peter Costello to lead the Libs. Hardly the groundswell of support that justifies a doorstop question.

Oh, and then there are these groups. I’m lovin’ that first photograph and the threat of ritualistic beheading.

That’s 59 people who oppose Costello’s leadership; just under a third of the number of those in favour. Where’s the dopey journalist’s (sic) question about those groups then?

But perhaps the most insightful Peter Costello group on Facebook is this one.

Peter Costello: pwned.

Back in April GrodsCorp asked for bets on the date that opposition leader (sic) Brendan Nelson would be ousted from his position. About three months have passed and given the shocker of a week that Bren-doc has endured it’s probably a good time for an update on the betting progress.

These people have been eliminated from the race:
* Wah (19 June)
* The Editor (27 July)
* Magic Bellybutton (18 July)
* Steve (28 May)
* The Happy Revolutionary (24 June)
* Toaf (15 June)
* Zombie Mao (4 June)
* Darryl Mason (11 June)
* EC (2 July)
* Evil Bill (30 July)
* David (14 July)

And these people are still in the running:
* Brokeneftleg (21 September)
* Jeremy (4 August)
* Bron (11 August)
* Mikey (24 November)
* Ant Rogenous (10 September)
* Cosmicjester (12 November)
* Almost Always Wrong (2 August)
* jLo (3 September)
* John Surname (15 August)
* Steveo (25 November)
* Chade (5 December)
* Dave From Albury (28 November)

From the number of eliminated punters it’s clear that Nelson’s leadership seemed terminal in April and he’s managed to last until now, so it’ll be interesting if he manages to last into 2009 given the tenuous nature of his current support within the coalition party room. Anyway, may ABJS* win.

* Anyone But John Surname

Drawing on Alexander Downer’s penchant for namedropping international figures of note, Mikey makes a bet.

…what’s the bet Downer starts name dropping himself?

And less than 24 hours later Mikey wins.

Late last week I spoke to 300 students in Adelaide about political leadership.

Alexander Downer recalls the morning after the night before.

“I remember the day after the election when Peter Costello made his announcement and my wife and some of my children, we were watching this announcement on television,” Mr Downer told the Nine Network.

“And somebody asked would I be interested in the job and the children all in unison howled out: ‘Don’t go anywhere near it Dad!’”

What he forgot to tell Channel Nine is that he also clearly heard the screams of 20 million Australians howling out in unison: “Noooooooo!”

Quite frankly, given Brendan Nelson’s atrocious performance in doorstop and radio interviews it surprises me that the Liberal party even put transcripts on their website. But if they’re going to put them up they should put them up intact. Here’s a snippet from Nelson’s doorstop in Gippsland today according to the Libs.

QUESTION: Are you confident you’ll be leading the Liberals at the next election?

DR NELSON: Yes, very confident.

But here’s the same snippet according to The Age.

Asked if he was confident he would be leading the opposition to the next election, he said: “As confident as I can… yes, very confident.”

See how they’ve cunningly left out the bit that makes the good doctor look like (more of a) dick?

If you need any more proof here’s some ABC footage (at 2min 06sec) of the doctored statement in question.

Oh, and here’s another interesting chunk of the transcript.

QUESTION: [inaudible]

DR NELSON: Instant a lot of the time.

What’s the bet that the question was “what kind of coffee do you drink?” in response to this statement of Nelson’s earlier in the doorstop?

The Labor Party has a track record of being captivated and high-jacked by left leaning, latte sippers in large suburban cities.

And what’s the bet that the question wasn’t actually inaudible?

Last week the Labor government delivered its first budget in thirteen years to mixed reviews, to which opposition leader Brendan Nelson responded in a not-totally-pathetic fashion when put in the context of his dismal leadership record. Today the coalition was handed a rare golden opportunity to stick one up Labor…

The exclusive Herald Sun/Galaxy poll taken at the weekend shows just 23 per cent of voters overall believe they will be better off as a result of the Budget.

A total of 33 per cent said they would be worse off, while a large pool of 44 per cent were uncommitted.

…and what do they do with it?

MALCOLM Turnbull has publicly confirmed a split within Liberal ranks over fuel excise but denied he is the source of a devastating leak that threatens to reignite the Liberal leadership question.

Them crazy Liberal attention seekers noticed that the negative spotlight looked set to shine elsewhere so they imploded just a little bit more to ensure that they stayed smack-bang in the centre of punters’ attention.

And what’s with Turnbull so actively undermining Nelson’s leadership in the public sphere? As if you’d put your concerns about a major party policy in an email to the leader’s chief of staff only minutes before that policy’s announcement unless you planned to use that email to boost yourself at a later date.

Sez Turnbull: “Naturally I support the policy measures announced in Dr Nelson’s Budget Reply.”

Bwah! Hah, ha, ha, haw!