If it’s a khaki election, it ain’t helping the LNP. Today’s Newspoll continues to paint a picture of LNP annihilation:
Albo is now trumping “Psycho”:
Given the khaki colour of things probably has favoured the LNP, that goes to show just how badly the incumbent party is being viewed across every other aspect of governing.
Will the LNP really take a guaranteed suicide pilot into the election?
There is growing anxiety in the parliamentary Liberal Party. They are worried they are doomed to oblivion with Scott Morrison and are beginning to look for a way out.
A senior member of the government – a minister in Morrison’s cabinet – has begun contacting “like-minded” colleagues by email to arrange meetings where they can discuss the crisis. One recipient says, “The last time this happened, the leader was toppled.”
This makes the next time the party room gets together – at the end of the month for the budget – a potential killing field for the prime minister. “Anything could happen,” one MP said. “Stay tuned.”
Not even Morrison’s new rules requiring a two-thirds majority of the party room to dump a sitting prime minister would save him. “When you’re gone, you’re gone,” was the rejoinder. And that makes sense: if more than half of the party room has lost confidence in its leader, he is left without a shred of credible authority.
The anxiety is not only about the string of disastrous polls in recent months but the prime minister’s inability to get the clear air he needs to stage a political comeback. It is true that when things are running against a political leader, everything can be seen in a negative light. But Morrison is further hamstrung by the fact the dominant political narrative of the Coalition in government – namely, holding back action on climate change under the premise it would harm the economy – is now on the wrong side of the argument. Even when the prime minister tries to drag debate to his preferred turf of national security or the economy, inconvenient facts get in the way.
Surely it’s too late. But you never know!
