Well, in case there were enough hats in the ring and moving parts behind the infernal machinations that have defined this Liberal Party today, here’s some more to chew on: multiple reports have emerged that Julie Bishop is throwing her hat in the ring for the leadership.
The report first emerged from Channel 7:
BREAKING AND EXCLUSIVE from @Riley7News – Julie Bishop will run for the Liberal leadership @7NewsSydney #auspol
— Olivia Leeming (@olivialeeming) August 23, 2018
The current (and now longstanding) deputy leader of the Liberals, Bishop has essentially been an omnipresent figure in Liberals leadership speculation every time it happens to come up. It wouldn’t be the first time there have been reports Bishop would be part of a leadership challenge.
Bishop also consistently polls better than many other Liberal contenders – and certainly does in the case of the largely disliked Peter Dutton and Scott Morrison. A ReachTel poll conducted Wednesday night found that 29% of voters preferred Bishop as leader of the Liberal Party, ahead of Tony Abbott at 14%, Dutton at 10% and Morrison at 8.6%. For the record, Turnbull still leads on this metric at 38%, though his position seems increasingly untenable.
At the moment there’s not much else to go off, so take it all with a grain of salt. But it’s pretty obvious Julie Bishop has been contemplating whether it’s worth a flutter. And when your opponents are widely loathed like Dutton and Morrison, what’s to lose?
