Dorset Diversions: England as Once it Was

All those conservatives out there revelling in Labor’s well-deserved election loss ought not to get too triumphant.  Sure, Team Shorten had moved so far left that those of us immensely dissatisfied with the Libs were more or less driven to supporting them (for me it was by preferencing them third last, only above Labor and the Greens).  But that result, you’ll recall, was driven almost wholly by Queensland which delivered some 40 percent of Coalition House MPs yet received only some 20 percent of Cabinet spots – and in which the LNP ran a much more muscular type campaign than in Victoria and NSW.  Take Queensland out of the equation and Shorten and Labor, as left-leaning as they were, would have won and would have won handily.  Similarly, the nature of the Morrison cabinet screams ‘Turnbull lite’ more than anything else.  Some in the ministry make wet rags look like vertebrates.

Then there’s Mr. Morrison’s post-election response to the Israel Folau fiasco.  As a…