At a mate's birthday party today, we talked briefly about how far the federal Liberal party ranks have fallen. They've gone from hero to zero in a couple of years. It really is quite astounding.
We talked about how it is such a shame that Costello never became PM, that he would have made a great leader, and perfect on the domestic and world stage during this economic crisis.
It got me thinking that a lot of focus goes into Howard's unwillingness to hand the batten to Costello in an orderly leadership transition, but that perhaps there should be more discussion about how much damage Howard has caused the broader party by not doing so.
In the Howard Year's documentary Howard could hardly hide the personal motivation behind not giving Costello the leadership...nobody ever handed it to him so why should he give it to Pete? That was pretty much the thrust of Howard's thinking.
History now shows that by not planning an orderly transition to Costello, running a lacklustre, boring and uninspiring campaign (he looked asleep half the time as he sent us into trance with his "Who do you trust?" questions) Howard set on course a devastation of the senior ranks of the party, to leave the party reeling and unlikely to be really in the contest for another 2 elections. Howard's argument that the benches wanted him to stay is no excuse. He and the senior echelon of the party should have planned the transition and made it clear when the time had come that this was the best thing for the party. The back benches don't really have a say if a leader decides to leave for the good of the party. Howard had a call and he didn't make it.
Howard's mistake cannot be registered as minor amongst a decade-plus of government achievements. It was a massive error of judgment and made worse by the personal bitterness that underpinned it.
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