"Dr Benjamin Thomas Jones is a Visiting Fellow at the Research School of Humanities and the Arts at the Australian National University."

Say no more. Humanities and Arts grads usually lean so far left that anything remotely conservative is considered evil incarnate.

But for a serious refutation: Howard brought over a lot of the working classes from Labor to the Liberals. A magnificent feat for a Liberal Prime Minister who traditionally are more business friendly. Labor will rarely make any headway if they're going to pander to minority groups and issues. The working classes don't care about gay marriage, they don't care about boat people, they don't want multiculturalism, and they don't care about narcissistic feminist movements. They want stable employment and affordable necessities; simple down to earth issues that they deal with on a day to day basis.

...“Howard, a friend of the workers”: You must be joking Aristocrat! Not only was Howard the “Anti-Thesis” of the toilers, but directly confrontational to them! Work Choices is not such a long step back in history. His confrontational and cowardly attacks on the workers institutions are legendary: But in the end it was work choices which demolished the Liberals and lost Howard his seat; surely you must remember!

...But worry not, The current crop of thieving lying criminals in power as Labor, have done a fine job in superseding the bad memories of the Howard era! The “Abbott Smirks” will no doubt finish the "hatchet" job on the workers sooner than later!

...The working class are basically a drone kingdom of intellectually dumb laggards. A point proved by their support for a political party opposed to the workers ethic! That may go some way towards supporting your attempted recitation from the Liberals “lie sheet” Aristocrat!

It appears the author is interpreting the results (which actually places Howard first) in line with the author's rather obvious anti-Liberal, anti-Howard orientation.

I'm sure the author will insist that people prefer Labor right up to the time Daddy Abbott romps home this year.

...And it gets “worser” Aristocrat; The new age worker is demographically and progressively “dumber” than his “dumb” predecessor as time moves forward. Multiculturalism more than ever, promoting confusion of languages and a marked lack of ability to speak or understand English in the ever broadening foreign base of our communities, and a dumbing-down of public education ensure the progression of the anti-intellectual, and the march of the masses into darkness through slavish obedience to State propaganda, with its simplistic messages of “all is well”, “trust us”: (Bins removed from "State" rail platforms as a constant reminder of the terrorists (sic))! And soon, but one political party “simply for your convenience” and renamed “ Abbott's-Bunnings” (Vote for us while you buy a hammer for your own protection)!

...I'd better stop now....

Diver Dan, I admit Workchoices was the downfall of Howard (plus a 'youthful' looking populist movement by the Rudd campaign). Yet, he was re-elected numerous times. He brought down unemployment and interest rates from the Keating era. This is why he was continually re-elected. Rudd was voted in on basically an 'it's time' feeling that Howard had been there too long (plus the Workchoices fiasco). Abbott will highly probably win in September because he can connect to the worker better than Gillard can ('stopping the boats', repealing the carbon tax, his volunteer work etc. whereas Gillard spent 30 years as a 'socialist').

You might complain about the worker being dumb, but he's never been very smart. Can you point to any time or culture throughout history where the masses were highly educated? Higher education has always been the domain of the select few. That won't change. Any raising of education standards among the masses will only push the intellectual classes into creating new standards of elitism.