Crikey

The PM does the 7:30 Report. The PM’s performance on the 7:30 Report last night was a goof reel all in itself:

• The PM obviously thought he had to do the interview – and decided the best way of hosing things down was to be as boring as possible. But why did he attempt to divert every question back to the economy and all those unionists in the ALP? He ended up sounding like a stuck record.

• Costello might hate Kennett, but last night he must have been out there, somewhere, thinking just what the Jeffmeister said about the PM in that carphone conversation - he doesn’t “know whether he’s Arthur or Martha”.

• It was pretty spectacular when the PM called Red Kez “Peter”, but what about his Paris Hilton moment when he began a reply with “Hello!”. He should have tried that on YouTube.

• But it was Kerry who flunked the big occasion. He didn’t ask the obvious question: “Prime Minister, how can you continue to have this man in your Cabinet when he has shown you such disloyalty?”

Great moments in spin and Cossie’s logic. Camp Costello, Crikey understands, is telling journos that their boy didn’t know the Van Errington book would be out before the election. So presumably that means that Cossie thinks the Short Man is c-nt – but that voters can’t know he’s a c-nt until after they’ve re-elected him. So what does this mean Cossie thinks of voters?

Civility in politics? “Not to put too fine a point on it, sh-t happens,” senior cabinet minister Tony Abbott said on Lateline last night. Former leader John Hewson says of Costello: “If you look at the timing of these interviews obviously he was pretty pissed off …” We thought the Liberal Party was the party of civility – not like the Labor and all those foul-mouthed union hacks.

Déjà vu all over again? Does all of this bring back memories of the series Labor in Power, when all the participants were full and frank – and f-cked, or so they thought?