Howard in for the long haul

Bob Brown thinks Howard should have stood down last year but then he would say that wouldn’t he? The fact that Bob Brown doesn’t like Howard is one of the reasons I do. Glen Milne has been agitating for years and in fact is the basis of most of the speculation over that time on Howard’s leadership. Naming angry backbenchers, worried backbenchers, a source from the Liberal Party etc, etc and never, never naming anyone, he has been a one-man ‘Howard out, Costello in’ band. But he is consistent, I’ll give him that. Today he states It is in this increasingly pessimistic context that the Liberal Party is convulsed by leadership confusion. Sorry, don’t see it. Janet Albrechtsen and Andrew Bolt have both deserted the ship and are advocating leadership change. Neal Brown, Melbourne QC and ex Lib politician states the case for sticking with Howard and puts it fairly succinctly. Some people need reminding of what a great job Howard has done and the fact that Rudd’s ascendancy in the polls relates to his cliche based policies. When the campaign starts he will be called upon to fill in the detail and then we may well see a different set of polls. How, for example, does he justify fighting in Afghanistan as ‘good’ and fighting in Iraq as ‘bad’? The Middle East is the core of the problem and has been for thousands of years. Afghanistan is just one of the battle areas of the fight against terror. The Taliban recruit from the Middle East and where does OBL come from? What will he have to say about the fact that an ALP government will have 75% of it’s front benches manned by union hacks when they only represent maybe 20% of the work force? What is his stand on defence? Are we going back to the discredited Defence of Australia or at best will we only deploy to the Pacific basin when it is clear that what happens anywhere in the world affects us. What is his Tax policy? I don’t know but I should and so should anyone thinking of voting for him I wait with baited breath for some detail.