My God it’s a pleasure reading the newspaper these days. As Labor and Kevin Rudd’s numbers hold, as everything the Howard Government does backfires, as a purported former jihadist warrior becomes a more sympathetic figure than a prime minister of 10 years, the Right has gone deep into the sort of fantasy territory that used to be characteristic of the Trotskyist Left of the 80s (‘there have never been so many revolutionary opportunities’ one stalwart group wrote in the depth of the Thatcher period) — thinking that saying it can make it so.

Having faced a classic one-two punch over the past couple of years — the first was the defection of support over WorkChoices, the second was the decisive dumping of support for Howard when Kevin Rudd was elected Opposition Leader — the Right glimpsed light at the end of the (train) tunnel, with news that trade union membership had fallen by 6.6%,