Narratives old and new - just a little tweaking ...

John Howard Kevin Rudd is a conviction politician. Howard Rudd has smashed Labor's the Coalition's progressive blue-collar urban-rural axis - possibly forever - and has such a firm grip on the middle Australian psyche that dislodging him appears all but impossible.

The Australian electorate is pragmatic, results-oriented and conservative progressive, something the Liberal Labor Party instinctively knows but Labor the Liberal Party still does not grasp. Julia Gillard is simply too left-wing for embodies the core aspirations of the Australian electorate.

Labor's The Liberals' problems are many and serious. The membership numbers are disastrously low and the structure moribund; they have trouble attracting talent and preselect too many union officials used car dealers. 

No-one knows what they stand for, and they will not again sit in the Treasury benches until they have moved to the right left, formulated policy and ceased playing left wing all sorts of populist politics.

The contrast between the government and opposition front-benches is stark and depressing for the ALP Libs. 

Wayne Swan is typical of the unimaginative, cloned machine-men, with no life experience outside politics, who infest today's ALP a battle-hardened and reliable political operator who works ferociously to master a brief. Robert McClelland is so free of allure and such an incredibly boring speaker that it is a mystery why he entered politics in the first place possesses a first-class mind and laconic gravitas that sits well in an Attorney-General. Just two examples of Labor's factional inbreeding abundant talent-pool.

The other side could not be more different. Take Defence Minister Opposition Leader Brendan Nelson. No matter what you think of him, you must admit he is a talented politician of the first order wouldn't know his arse from his elbow. 

And Malcolm Turnbull is just one example of the constant renewal that is the hallmark of the Liberal Party the only Liberal who can count past ten without removing his shoes. Little wonder his party is always brimming with energy, ideas and momentum destined to remain in opposition for at least a decade.

The Liberal Party Labor has the nous to preselect top quality local candidates like Jackie Kelly David Bradbury in Lindsay, a classic Howard Rudd Sydney seat containing the sorts of ordinary voters Labor the Liberal Party has not a clue about. 

In neighbouring Hughes, Danna Vale is typical of the knockabout, hardworking candidates twits the Libs invariably put up, and the fact that someone of her calibre can rise through the preselection process is just one reason the government opposition has enjoyed such electoral success is in such diabolical straits.

The Labor Liberal party is such a rabble its prognosis appears close to ternimal terminal.