There is a cardinal rule of Australian politics which will absolutely never be broken: anyone who is removed as leader of a party is going to spend the rest of their lives complaining about it. Even Malcolm Turnbull, who theoretically has enough money to buy a cool speedboat every day for the remaining duration of his life, is going to sook forever.
His latest stunt is a very high level entry in the I’m Not Mad I Was Knifed, I Just Want To Talk About It Sensibly stakes: going on British telly to whinge about it. The former prime minister popped up on Andrew Neil‘s BBC show Politics Live to claim that he was removed as leader because the Liberal Party was afraid his brand of agonising centrism would win the election.
“Basically, you could argue that their concern was not that I’d lose the election but rather that I’d win it,” he told Neil.
Neil challenged him on that, saying it was “not credible” given that the government was behind Labor in 40 consecutive polls. In response to that, Turnbull appealed to the mysterious magic of internal polling, which he claims put him ahead in marginal seats.
“We had essentially drawn even, and in our own polling in the marginal seats, which is obviously the only ones that matter, you know, in terms of determining government, we were ahead,” Turnbull said.
He took time to make a potshot at Scott Morrison‘s polling performance:
Normally when you replace a leader, you replace the unpopular person who’s fate is sealed with somebody who is much more popular and gives you a chance at winning. That was not what happened. The party on any of the objective indications is polling in a worse position that it was in August, I mean you can’t deny that’s a fact.
Gonna be a cool election!
