Belly there are certainly some who I think are destructive. I do get very suspicious when everybody tows the party line on a contentious issue, I'm cynical enough to suspect that disenting voices have been stomped on. I find it somewhat encouraging when those voices seem to be able to speak out even when I don't like what they say.

It's not always politically helpful to present a less than united front but I don't like the kind of government we get when leaders are to effective at shutting those voices up. I can think of one

Foxy I think that there are those on most sides of politics who embrace the idea of tollerance and those who reject it. The left spin merchants have done well at promoting the idea that the left is tollerant and the right is intollerant but I think that's mostly spin (and timing). The spin merchants play the bit's which suit and ignore the bit's that don't.

This thread is based on a perception about the Liberals and middle-aged men not because middle-aged men are unique to the liberals but because the spin merchants have played on that perception of the libs whilst pretending that middle-aged men don't hold similar roles in the ALP, Greens etc.

R0bert

Dear RObert,

Of course the spin merchants play the bits
that suit them, and ignore the bits that don't.
Spin merchants exist in both sides of politics.

However, what
has been disappointing of late, and why the media
picks on the Liberal Party is that all they seem
able to do is criticize - without offering any
alternatives. That gets a bit tiring after a while.
Take their tactics of "leaks" to the media...
(Ute-gate-affair, which backfired badly).

As Dennis Pryor pointed out in his
satirical take, "Political Pryorities: How
to get on top of Australian Politics," :

Leaks are, "...a method of manipulating the news
by testing or discrediting... by
informing members of the media on a confiential
basis. The method circumvents the publicity of
raising the matter in Parliament in the form of
legislation. Leaks may be recognised by the use
in the media of such expressions as 'informed sources..."

However, this problem is going to be around for a while -
long enough to allow us to judge the effectiveness of the PM's
policies, as well as the actions of the Opposition and their
chosen leaders and MPs.

I think what I've started to realise is that the old divisions of Left vs Right, conservative vs progressive, whilst still in existence, are being trumped by a bigger division: that of being in power vs not being in power.

How many times have you seen left-wingers being used as window-dressing by their parties, whilst their efforts are being undermined by unelected, backroom heavyweights? How many times do you see committed lefties in opposition switch sides when they get into government and become a Minister? This shows me that, in real life, the ideological aspects are often being trumped by real power.

Dear RobP,

I like Dennis Pryor's
"Newton's Laws of Political Motion.":

1) All political bodies continue in a
state of dishonesty unless they are acted upon
by external forces to reveal that dishonesty.

2) The rate of change of momentum in the speed
of government business is proportionate to the
nearness of the next election.

3) To every political blunder there is an equal
and opposite cover-up.

That's a classic, Foxy. It just shows you that physics rules in the physical world.

I seem to remember hearing something similar: the nth (bodgie) law of thermodynamics was that shite expands to fill the available space. There's another witticism having a political analogue.

Do you or anyone else know the other (bodgie) laws of thermodynamics?

Dear RobP,

No. Robbie, I don't know the bodgie
laws ... only the "Pryor's Laws of
Politics." (such as the law of opposite
results, the law of the dead donkey,
the law of political irony, the law of the
poltical alias, the law of obfuscation,
the law of opposite interpretation,
and the law of the handsome prince from a
far country or when in doubt import an
overseas expert, and the law of the magic
pudding).