There’s nothing quite as pathetic as watching a former Australian prime minister trying to redress a less than stellar political career. That Tony Abbott would use the Margaret Thatcher Lecture to do it, however, seems to fit nicely into his Anglophilic world view.
The event itself, celebrating a former UK Prime Minister who was far more arrogant and divisive than Abbott, seems a fitting place for him. No UK leader in living memory evoked such hatred for the way she so callously destroyed working class livelihoods.
Perhaps one should stop wasting good time writing about Tony Abbott. After devoting the last two years to his downfall and now celebrating that most joyous event, I would prefer never to pen his name again.
But after watching some of his Margaret Thatcher Lecture as he addressed that most pompous of audiences at the Guildhall in London, it became apparent that he is destined to follow another former PM and continue to embarrass himself and us along the way. It seems he is going to keep my keyboard working a little longer.
It is sad to watch someone in decline try to establish a positive legacy. It is worse when that effort is filled with such poisonous vitriol filled with such anti-human, anti-Christian values. As Alan Austin suggests, Abbott is in danger of being “consigned to the bin of foreign, right wing nutters along with Sarah Palin, Geert Wilders and Pauline Hanson.”
Margaret Thatcher, on the other hand, was the one who took on Argentina’s President Galtieri when he invaded the Falkland Islands. Against the advice from the Ministry of Defence she dispatched a Naval Task Force to reclaim them.
The Argentine invasion was a bizarre act by the ageing president in an attempt to deflect attention from his country’s appalling human rights record and its economic malaise.
The Falklands incident, however, could have been handled effectively through diplomatic channels over time. After all, it was a worthless rock in the Southern Ocean that meant little to either side. But Thatcher decided a show of force was necessary.
The result: Britain suffered 258 killed and 777 wounded. In addition, 2 destroyers, 2 frigates, and 2 auxiliary vessels were sunk. But they did reclaim their islands. For Argentina, the Falklands War cost 649 killed, 1,068 wounded, and 11,313 captured. In addition, the Argentine Navy lost a submarine, a light cruiser, and 75 fixed-wing aircraft.
As we have all witnessed recently, Tony Abbott, as Prime Minister, displayed an obsessive interest in defence and a willingness to commit Australian defence personnel to foreign conflicts. It is reasonable to speculate he would have gone further had his hold on the top job been stronger.
In his address to the English Lords and ladies, he suggested that placing boots on the ground in Syria was a necessary component to defeating ISIS. His use of the dreaded ‘death cult’ slogan was an embarrassment that, fortunately, the few who heard it, would not have understood.
But, there is little doubt that a ‘Coalition of the Willing Mark 2’, if it was gathered, would have seen Australian soldiers caught up in that conflict if Abbott was still in charge.
We are a better nation for his removal from such a powerful position. It was a strange act on Abbott’s part to make such divisive comments to a foreign audience while still a member of the Australian government. It is hard to see Malcolm Turnbull agreeing to such a scenario.
Turnbull avoided chastising him in public, but I would be surprised if that was the last Abbott heard about it. Thankfully, the address was largely ignored by the international media, but not by those were keen to satirise it.
Abbott’s term as PM is now little more than a blimp on the radar and we have regained our self-respect. This, however, does not mean to say we are being governed well. We are not. Those appalling asylum seeker detention tactics are still in play and our economy is still heading south. The latest CPI figures are a prelude to recession.
These and other issues will test the Turnbull government in the coming months. If Labor is to mount a serious challenge to counter Turnbull’s popularity, something will have to be done about Bill Shorten.
But somehow, that hurdle pales in comparison to the one the nation has already cleared. We have rid ourselves of one right wing nutter. There are still some around though and they need to be exposed for the danger they represent.
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And in addition to the bigotry of his speech he was paid for giving it.He did a shit job as pm, a shit job as member for Warringah and whilst he is still being paid for the latter he is moonlighting as a paid public speaker! The oaf is a leach!
Thanks John
It’s a strange contradiction of our political arrangements that a person like Abbott actually achieved high office within our Liberal democracy.
As we are told endlessly, we don’t vote for a Leader, we don’t have a Presidential system – not that progressives in the US have benefited much from Obama’s presidency with Congress dominated by Republican’s at war with themselves – we vote for a party platform or a local Member and we leave it to the dominant Party to elect their leader who then becomes our leader. So what went wrong and how did a person so obviously unrepresentative and unsuitable for high office ever get that far. Some put it down to the Steven Bradbury effect , that the other more skilled and better prepared competitors fell or were tripped. Unlike Turnbull, I believe that the parties are governed by factions and back room deals, operating to our detriment ; you just have to look at the pre-selection in Hockey’s old seat..
It will make for an interesting and instructive thesis to reflect on as we ‘touch wood’ and hope that those stars never again align.
Andrew Robb played a significant role in installing Tony Abbott. The lying turd quite happily admits that he used his mental illness as a ploy to shaft Malcolm. If a man can blatantly lie to his own leader and use his depression as a strategy, why should we expect him to be telling us the truth about the FTAs.
I can just see Tony on a speaking tour with Geert Wilders and Christopher Monckton with George Pell thrown in for good measure.
I think Abbott will continue to do little more than embarrass Australia. I can’t imagine him being taken seriously on the world speaking circuit, especially when one factors in what seems to be a global paradigm shift to the left. I really hope Labor takes note of that seeming shift and makes one of its own.
Keerti,
Your observation: “The oaf is a leach” brings to mind a few, still appropriate lines from Shelley’s sonnet, “England 1819”.
Princes, the dregs of their dull race, who flow
Through public scorn,—mud from a muddy spring;
Rulers who neither see nor feel nor know,
But leechlike to their fainting country cling
But I agree: he has leached decency out of politics.
Interested to note after years of lies, countless racist, homophobic, misogynist, thuggery like abuse from Abbott, finally his Thatcher Lecture has woken from their blinkered slumber, a few of the hierarchy of the Australian Catholic Church. These same men and their colleagues chose to ignore these most unchristian, deplorable traits previously and laid into the low life tosser.
Better ‘late than never’ hardly seems to fit this particular serial abusers track record.
http://linkis.com/ETQG3
Abbott will now take his rightful and well earned place as the butt of the country’s jokes. Maybe the world’s? No more Polish, Irish, whatever jokes, we will all know when a joke starts “An Irishman, a Pole and Tony Abbott walk into a bar…….” Who will be the pilloried character.
But totally agree with you John! Malcolm Turnbull is not much better philisophically (just an actual gentleman) and Labor have shot any chances they ever had down in flames!
I’m stunned that I misread Abbott so badly!
I truly though that he was just another lazy, clueless, opportunist politician making a grab for some easy populist votes. I would not consider he actually believed his endless, vile gibbering. After all, how could a person like that rise to be PM of Australia?
I was so wrong…
Tony and Malcolm are walking down the road and Tony’s got a bag of doughnuts in his hand.
Tony says to Malcolm, “If you can guess how many doughnuts are in my bag, you can have them both”
I see Kerri you have joined the 70 plus % who have been bewitched and taken in by the snake oil salesman Turnbull. I am happy to be included in the less than 30%. The power behind the throne is still the Institute of Public Affairs and its associates as in Murdoch, and the BIG end of town. Turnbull is being given just enough rope to keep him swinging….beware the drop.
Neoliberal right wing policy is still with us 35 years after the Reagan/Thatcher era and almost taken for granted as the norm by Labor politicians as well as LNP. The public were onside because of spin and complicit media. That there even is a “Margaret Thatcher Lecture” indicates the spin is ongoing and successful.
Abbott’s advice on the refugees is so blatantly impractical (never mind cruel) it risks the credibility of the spin. He has probably embarrassed the Conservatives who invited him.
On Prof Michael Hudson’s website there are several articles about Thatcher – link to one:
The public will continue to be fed guff about the “Iron Lady” and probably believe it.
Conservatism gets me so deflated. Imagine a future of limited progression and playing everything safe. Save us Turnbull and Plibersek…
No. If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face — for ever. George Orwell, 1984. We were so nearly there; still are, just not travelling towards it quite so rapidly. There remains no room for complacency, nor any reason to cease the vigilance. The right still stalks and we are not out of the woods yet.
Tony Abbott, endlessly striving to achieve that next level of blindly arrogant ignorance, and so often succeeding,
sigh
If I wasn’t a lifelong cynic I might be surprised and depressed, however I am so I never expected anything more.
Grace, humility, human compassion, intelligent thought and concern for others outside yourself and your own are all Supposed to be Christian values but things Abbott will always be a stranger to.
Stephen
I’ve just been reading a review of a book by Andrew Street originally to be titled ‘The inexplicably Long and Embarrassing Reign of Captain Abbott’ but with his premature ejection it has been published with the revised title, ‘The short and Excruciatingly Embarrassing Reign of Captain Abbott’.
The reviewer, Richard King, likens the policy making of Team Abbott as having ‘ all the grace and competence of Laurel and Hardy delivering a grand piano’ – ‘love that imagery !
The book notes that Abbott’s ‘nineteen strong ministry was immediately controversial, principally for containing exactly one person without a penis’ following which Abbott appointed himself as Minister for Women : the irony is powerful, isn’t it ?
We’ll miss you, Tone but not in a nice way.
Perhaps Tony Abbott is the Liberal Party’s Mark Latham
Terry2,
Like a hole in the head?
Á good article John,and the heading to your piece describes him to a tee.Abbott another Right Wing Nutter.
It should be inscribed on his Tombstone.”
Faye
Without the charm and finesse of Latham …………
“Stop the waste” – Always knew Abbott was/is projecting when ever he says this.
Can the UK keep him.
Ah..the Right Wing Bell Head delivering a vile speech at a gala held for a hideous woman who protected pedophiles in her party.
Yep. About right
Abbott might be gone, sort of, but make no mistake, if the Yanks crook their finger, Australian troops will be deployed before you can blink.
As for Turnbull and the Liberals …. same vile party, just better dressed, so to speak.
Love you Kaye. Little billy, tanya and penny have been soft on their colleague robb and in deference to his illness have let him off the hook at every level.
We lost on the yanks under little johnnie (and perhaps worse is to come with the TPP). It will, almost certainly, be a social disaster with the Chinese FTA . the secrecy makes it an unknown outcome for the FTAs of the Japanese (submarine??) and Korean (they lost their European car market??) but the haste and secrecy suggests robb shafted the union workers again.
If little Billy’s mob doesn’t stand for the workers, who does?
As for thatcher she gave the I’m alright jack workers a chance to drop the millstone unions and the leaped at it. The libs have taken the more modern tact and will get some other country to do the dirty work but this time the chippies, welders and a string of other tradies will lose out.
The election of this walking talking primate to the highest office in the land, defies logic. It in fact defies imagination. This imbecile was the most divisive P.M. to have ever graced the floors of parliament house. The man is the personification of evil. What’s worse, since Turnbull got shot of him, he hasn’t stopped on a daily basis telling the Australian people what a great man he was. The contradiction of this seems to have escaped the MSM altogether. I have not seen a question asked by anyone thus far, who paid for this imbeciles trip to the U.K. to give a speech the good Dr Goebbals would have been proud of. I despair.