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on 26-02-2015 12:19 PM
There are three possible replacements for Tony Abbott should he eventually fall. How they are making their case for leadership speaks volumes.
One the one hand there are Scott Morrison and, now making a more subtle pitch, Julie Bishop.
On the other there is Malcolm Turnbull.
Morrison and Bishop are making their respective cases by performing as brilliantly as they can as Ministers in the Abbott Government. In doing so, they also maximise the Abbott Government’s chances of survival. Their self-promotion is at the same time loyal - both to their leader and their party.
Turnbull, in contrast, makes his own case not by performing well but behaving badly - by sniping and sneering at Abbott in a clear attempt to tear him down. In doing so, he minimises the Abbott Government’s chances of survival. His self-promotion is disloyal - both to his leader and his party.
Turnbull’s false and offensive insinuation that Abbott is forgetting the children and is being too aggressive is portrayed by journalists of the Left as the true measure of the sentiment of most Liberal MPs.
In fact, if Turnbull were leader, I suspect most Liberal MPs would chafe at Turnbull’s support of a Leftist bureaucracy that has gone to war against them and one of their greatest achievements in government to date - and one of Morrison’s, too.
Liberal MPs should consider well that contrast.
Do they want as their next leader a man who, like Rudd, would seek to destroy their own in a bid to grab power? Who sides with the Liberals’ natural enemies?
Or do they choose instead a colleague who has performed best in the service of the government, and discomfited its foes?
The answer is becoming more obvious by the day. Time is the friend of Morrison and Bishop, and I expect Turnbull to step up his destabilisation of Abbott as he realises that, too
