daily headspa

There is an Australian politician who as leader led his party to not quite grasp the brass ring. Reluctant to admit failure he said that his party didn’t loose, they just did not get enough votes to win.

His name was Billy Snedden and he was Leader of the Liberal Party and led that party in defeat at the 1974 election. I have always had a soft spot for this man who was so schooled in political non-speech, so sold to the sound-bite grab and the poll-driven agenda that even at the end of it all, when his political capital was all used up, he still fought the good fight and refused to make a straightforward statement. RIP Billy and may therefore ever be a bronze bust of your gathering dust in some forgotten corner that shall be forever obfuscated.



All politicians are crooks and liars.

This must by now be a proven scientific fact. It can be heard enunciated, or slurred, in any bar and pub in almost any town in the Western world.

So sure are we of this maxim that out of the mouths of children and babes it is heard with monotonous regularity.

Yes, yes, I know we could all give enough tawdry examples to fill a dumpster. I myself have been shafted a couple of times in the halls of power with such practiced dexterity that  it almost didn’t hurt a bit. But so what?

What are we to do?

Well the first thing we could do is assume that the proportion of crooks, liars and incompetent, knuckle-dragging idiots amongst politicians is probably about the same as it is in the gen pop.

Then we could assume that there might be similar proportions of enlightened geniuses as amongst the rest of us and we should not be surprised if we don’t meet too many in the big house either.

The sad truth of it is, is that politicians are pretty much just like the people who elect them. Yes, we would like them to talk straight to us on the odd occasion. Yes, we would prefer it if they didn’t do much more rorting of the system than nicking a couple of stamps and a pencil sharpener or two and yes, we would love it if they could get us out of the messes we have gotten ourselves into but they probably won’t and maybe they can’t but as the great Sir Winston is often quoted as possibly having said at some point in a long champagne-swilling, kipper-chewing, cigar-waving breakfast; democracy is the worst form of government except for all the others.


I’m getting myself a new dictionary. This is the definition mine offers for the word ‘debate’:

Noun. A formal contest of argumentation in which two opposing teams defend and attack a given proposition.

We had a debate here the other night, the only one for this short election campaign, between the Leader of the Opposition and the Prime Minister and based on that, here is the new definition I am submitting to those dictionary types.

Debate: noun. A demonstration in watching paint dry; without the paint.

That is so wrong.

My God, it was the dullest piece of television I have ever seen and I’ve watched almost an entire half-episode of ‘Friends’!

I would have preferred to watch a boxing match in which both boxers had their arms tied behind their backs, were blindfold and required to sit in a wing-backed chair in their own corners for the whole match.

I thought at one point that one of them was about to say something interesting but it was just a cough coming on.

I think both of them have been to the Obama School of Public Speaking, where the main lesson is to learn to speak with the unerring beat of a metronome. Listening to Obama and these two is like listening to Miles Davis being played on cheap KMart keyboard stuck on the Jazz autoplay function.

Bland and mind-numbingly dull was, I am sure, the goal and I can imagine the minders greeting their leaders at the end of the hour (it was only an hour!) and saying to them. ‘Congratulations you didn’t say anything! Good for you.’

What a strange world we inhabit, an hour of prime-time exposure you would think would increase the likelihood that I might want to vote for one of them right? I mean, I’m no political scientist but wouldn't that be the point?