So much for going gently into that good night, from the AFR:
Liberals still seething over last week’s leadership spill are vowing to target Treasurer Scott Morrison, who has found himself the ongoing focus of Tony Abbott’s ire.
Mr Abbott accused Mr Morrison of “badly misleading” the Australian people after Mr Morrison said last week that he had tried to warn Mr Abbott ‘s office three days before he was ousted by Malcolm Turnbull that the brewing coup was a real threat.
“Not true, not true; Scott never warned anyone,” Mr Abbott told The Daily Telegraph.
“He certainly never warned me. I spoke to him on Friday [before the coup]: not a hint of a warning.
Who cares what happened, Tony, you are fool and got what you deserved.
But no! From Fairfax:
Malcolm Turnbull’s overthrow of Tony Abbott has “set off a civil war within News Corp”, according to one of the publisher’s most popular and conservative commentators, Andrew Bolt.
…In a personal attack during his regular 2GB radio show with Steve Price, Mr Bolt said The Australian‘s editor-in-chief Chris Mitchell had acted unprofessionally by pursuing “personal vendettas” against him.
…Mr Mitchell told The Australian in response that the readers of Bolt’s blog were different from The Australian‘s core demographic.
“Bolt’s audience includes many conservative retirees whereas The Australian‘s readership is younger, rich, better educated and working in legal, political or the business community,” he said. “These people don’t read the Tele or Bolt.”
Petty stuff, really, much like last week’s Ray Hadley assault. The brown shirted brigade is united in a kind of weird soft fascism that combines nationalism, border control, fanatical resistance to climate change as an idea and deep social conservatism but it does not appear to have much ideological ballast beyond that.
I’d be surprised if there is enough there to make for a sustained and disruptive attack on the Liberal Party. More like the buzzing of background crazies.
