Scott Morrison Josh Frydenberg Jerusalem embassy
Scott Morrison and Josh Frydenberg address the media after the Wentworth byelection (Image: AAP/Chris Pavlich)

Politics is a game of scissors paper rock. Call it numbers screw-up money. Whenever anything bizarre appears, is it numbers, screw-up or money? Screw-up beats numbers (i.e. in-party or electoral support), money beats screw-up, numbers beats money. Round it goes. Whatever your first thought is, it’s the one that beats it that’s likely true.

Take this Israel embassy schemozzle. This began, it seems, as a desperate pitch for the Libs to come down off Bellevue Hill with an increased Jewish vote carved in stone. Numbers. (We wrote the book on Numbers)*. Wentworth was lost, and by the waters of Icebergs, yea we wept. But there was still this damn embassy thing hanging around.