SUBMARINES

It's possible to justify choosing any of the new submarine bids. 

The Swedish/Australian one? We did that last time and it worked. 

The French? Has the potential to go nuclear. 

The German? Worth pursuing. 

The Japanese? Possibly, but not if it locks us into an alliance with Tokyo; will be built in Japan; and if the Japanese won't explain any of the advantages publicly. 

How many hulls in this picture?

We'd be better off without one, as I suggest in this piece for the Canberra Times . . .

NOW LONG CAN HE HOLD ON?

I can examine my heart and say I wish Tony Abbott no harm.

But I don't think that he'll be prime minister come July.

There's no recovery once you're on the ropes

The ineluctable drumbeat of history tells us once authority is lost it can never be recovered.

I laid out the prognosis in this piece for the Canberra Times . . .

THE FOREIGN ISSUE

Tony Abbott claims he should remain PM because he's strong on defence, security and foreign affairs issues.

Strong, maybe, but effective?

Personally, I don't believe so.

As this article for todays Canberra Times suggests . . .

(PS They gave it the headline)

Candour

Norman Abjorensen kicks off his latest piece for Inside Story with a great quote: 

"In his 2011 book, Chavs: The Demonization of the Working Class, Owen Jones describes how, in his final year at Oxford a decade ago, he heard a senior member of the party (widely believed to be David Cameron) speak with blunt candour at an informal gathering: “What you have to realise about the Conservative Party is that it is a coalition of privileged interests. Its main purpose is to defend that privilege. And the way it wins elections is by giving just enough to just enough other people.”

• 1.Alexander Wendt40.76%
• 2.R
• 32.73%
• 4.James Fearon24.82%
• 5.Kenneth Waltz23.23%
• 6.Joseph Nye Jr.17.32%
• 7.Bruce Bueno de Mesquita13.20%
• 8.Samuel Huntington11.51%
• 9.Martha Finnemore11.19%
• 10.Robert Jervis11.09%
• 11.Stephen Walt10.77%
• 12.Kathryn Sikkink8.76%
• 13.Peter Katzenstein7.92%
• 14.Beth Simmons7.18%
• 15.David Lake6.76%

ONE QUESTION

Journalists are paid to make stories. We write new ones every day.

Danger -journalist at work

But sometimes people don't want the stuff that we serve up daily - they just want to skip to the punch-line at the end.

You instinctively 'know' what this is when you pause to think about it for a second or two. You 'know' how things will work out in the long run.

I harnessed that knowledge to write about this year in politics.

We'll hear a lot, this year, about Tony Abbott, but you know how it will end up.

Badly.

As I wrote in today's Canberra Times . . .