Reading or listening to Phillip Adams makes my head asplode, and so, over the years, I’ve learned to avoid having my eyes or ears in the same place as his words. Makes our relationship quite amicable. But twice this week I’ve accidentally come into contact with him. Once, because I’d forgotten to never have the radio tuned to Radio National when Late Night Live is repeated and then again today, because he has a piece in The Australian somewhere in the papery bit and not in the magazine.
Why did I do it? Why did I read that piece? The first sentence was innocuous enough, “We’d planned ‘Rudd’s first interview since the coup’ for the previous week.” Okay, trademark namedropping right from the opening ‘we’, but anyhoo and moving on. To the second sentence then, “Kevin knew I’d totally opposed the coup and resigned from the ALP in protest…”
And that was it, the point where it would have been better if my head had fallen off, because it would have forced me to stop reading.
Now, I get that people are unhappy with the change of leadership and the way it came about and I can see why you might not like it. I get it, because I have been uncomfortable with the way the ALP organises its affairs for a very great number of years. It’s one of the reasons I am not a member of the ALP.
What I don’t get – or perhaps what I wish I didn’t get – is why this particular manoeuvre is the one that makes you buy out of the process.