The Mal-churian Candidate

Recently the former ALP Minister and bovver boy from New South Wales, Carl Scully (who I knew briefly in the mid 1990s when seconded as a public servant to his office) suggested that Malcolm Turnbull had courted the Labor Party in quest of a seat in parliament.

This is not remotely new. Upon Turnbull’s election to the Liberal leadership after the second and successful coup attempt, an intrepid anonymous blogger started a website called Stop Turnbull, at which he or she catalogued in graphic detail the complete history of Turnbull’s Labor connections and his attempts at forging a political career through the ALP.

Fast forward to this week’s breaking news on the Liberal Party’s latest (leaked) moves on same sex marriage, and the Turnbull game plan is out there for all to see.

Those of us ancient enough or sufficiently interested in great old movies will know the story of The Manchurian Candidate in its original form, starring Frank Sinatra and the chilling Angela Lansbury, among others. Younger readers might know the inferior Denzel Washington version. For those who neither, the story recounts the planting of a brainwashed American, captured in the Korean War, who unwittingly becomes a secret communist agent and is years later injected into the US presidential election cycle to wreak havoc and to bring down the whole system.

Apart from Obama, schooled in Alinskyism and the by-any-means-necessary mores of Chicago politics, the most obvious candidate for the modern title of Manchurian Candidate must be one Malcolm Bligh Turnbull.

Conspiracy theory?  Consider this.

One would be at a loss to come up with a more perfect scenario of a conspiracy to destroy the Liberal Party and hand government to Labor, while in the meantime actually implementing Labor policies, than what has actually transpired under Turnbull.

• All but lose to Labor an unlosable election, through appalling campaigning?  Tick
• Perform so badly in office as a politician so as to make a Labor win at the next election all but inevitable? Tick
• Sideline and attempt to silence any resistance within the Liberal Party to the emerging direction?  Tick
• Kill any semblance of conservative policy development and implementation?  Tick
• Follow core policy directions of Labor (and indeed the Greens) while keeping the ministerial leather warm for Bill?  Tick

Need one actually list examples of active Labor/Greens policy enactment?  Well, here are some.

• Big and growing government spending?  Tick
• Gonski? Tick
• Safe Schools? Tick
• Same sex marriage (on the way apparently,without the promised plebiscite) Tick
• Ludicrous support for renewable energy, general climate lunacy and the careerist debasement of science? Tick
• Labor-friendly appointments of left-leaning mates to the ABC? Tick
• Cut assistance to traditional families with stay-at-home mothers? Tick

Equally, one could compile a dossier of conservative policies not implemented to make the same point. Cut the ABC back to size?  Don’t make me laugh.  Cut the overall size of government? Perish the thought. End subsidies to renewable energy and support for the climate scam?  See above.  Embed conservatives in key strategic areas of government?  Again, see above.  Strengthen traditional marriage, even defend it in the public square?  Don’t be ridiculous!  Kill off useless QANGOS?  Nope.  Give comfort to private schools?  Righto…..

Keith Windschuttle: Tony Abbott on Leadership

Mark Steyn recently commented that great politicians (like Thatcher and Reagan, to name but two) are successful because they are able to move the political centre towards themselves.  He contrasted this talent with Theresa “Therexit” May, who moved the centre towards her opponent, massively and in a very short time, and paid the price at the ballot box.

Well Turnbull makes Theresa May look like a rank amateur, the big difference, so far as I am concerned, being that May didn’t mean to do it!

As Mr Scully and the anonymous Stop Turnbull blogger remind us, Turnbull’s intent has been in plain sight for a very long time.  The useful idiots currently running the Liberal Party apparently have signed up for this one-way journey. When not actively abetting the white-anting they stand mute as the destruction continues apace. A train wreck in slow motion? No, the Liberals’ headlong rush toward self-destruction accelerates with every passing day.

Incidentally, one might wonder where the Nationals have been in all this?  Indeed, one might.  What is it about the whiff of ministerial leather?

Turnbull as Labor Lite?  No.  Just plain Labor.