Comrades,
It was very pleasing to see the Miracle of Democracy in Pakistan somehow contrive to elect former national cricket Captain and 1992 World Cup hero Imran Khan as the new Prime Minister.
Far from being a scholar of Islamic politics, I'm old enough to remember seeing the great man play, and God, he was good.
He prowled around the ground like a Prince he was so obviously a cut above the riff-raff, he was a damn fine fast man; quick superb swing and seam were his thing - taking a 'Michelle Pfieffer' [five wickets in an innings] no less than 23 times in test matches.
"Style and grace" were the words that came to mind watching him bowl - and he was lethal with a cherry in his hand - and he was also a very good late order batsman...with a handy average in the 30's batting at six or seven.
The quintessential all-rounder, and clearly a leader of men.
But you couldn't help but think during Immers' press conferences and other public utterances as Captain that he had a certain snakeyness about him, and that peculiar kind of shadyness that would make for a perfect politician.
And what's more, in an ideal entry on a pollie's CV - he was [is?] a major league womaniser, carrying on all sorts of affairs with much younger women during his first two marriages, particularly his first to his Spooky Girlfriend Jemima Goldsmith, and his current wife is the other half of a now-legitimised tryst with a woman 25 years his junior, but, hey, that comes with the territory when you are a charismatic former cricket star and you are well used to having groupies throwing themselves at you. In the end, it just becomes second nature for man like him.
Imran gave the game away at 30 - he's now 65 - and he's been in the Pakistan parliament since 2002. He's been working on this for 15 years, so he's no Johnny-come-lately. The main question is - has he left his run too late?
It is a miracle that his party, the PTI, has broken the various factions of the Muslim League's iron grip on power that they've had since the '60's, so the electorate are obviously are looking for change and are pinning their hopes on a bloke who was once a Matinee Idol.
Never mind the allegations that last month's General Election was rigged to buggery in Imran's favour, and it's no secret that the military was involved in a fair bit of foolin' around.
Given Imran comes from a Noble Game that is deeply rooted in honour and chivalry, but has so many ridiculous contradictions, and the Laws surrounding the concept of "fair" and "unfair" play are so obscure and opaque that attempts to codify them have only exposed the impossible complexity of it all, would make him perfectly suited to the Byzantine nature of Pakistani politics - where hanging by the neck, assassination, long-term incarceration and exile, not to mention coup d'état, are all legitimate weapons in the political arsenal.
So, on the face of it, Imran is well equipped to tackle corruption, with anti-graft being his major platform plank on the hustings. That said, one of his principal bowling partners back in the '80's and early 90's was "The Sultan of Swing" Wasim Akram - who was as corrupt-as-fuck - being perhaps the original and best ball tamperers of the Modern Era before the Sandpaper Scandal, and Wakka's was found by an official inquiry to be "not above suspicion" when it came to match fixing.
Goodluck Jonathon when it comes to wiping out corruption, Imran, in a system where trousering rupee's and cold hard greenbacks has been developed into a high art form - everyone is on the take [the former PM Nawaz Sharif is now doing ten years in the jail house and former military ruler General Pervez Musharraf is in hiding in Dubai], MP's claim having their snouts in the trough as an inalienable right, never mind that everyone else from the ordinary cop to the top judge, the clerk at the public service desk to the Boss Cockies in the Army brass and all the Big Men in the Big End of Town consider bribery as par for the course.
And you can't really blame MP's as every vote is for sale; the only value in the vote for dirt poor peasant farmers in the back woods or city slum dwellers in Pakistan will always be their right to sell it - to the candidate who is the highest bidder, so that can't go on forever without dipping into the public purse from time to time, can it?
What Imran is going to do with Pakistan's pathetic nuclear arsenal, and foreign policy in general, is anyone's guess.
Relations with China are a mess as usual, the United States just don't care about nobody no more; how's it going with India and the quasi-partition of Kashmir, then? And what about his next door neighbour - that intractable infernal labyrinth - Afghanistan? The best thing he could do there is junk The Bomb, and broker a peace-deal with the Taliban. Both highly unlikely prospects, you'd imagine.
I note that he said in his inaugural address to the nation hat he wanted to be known as the "Austerity PM" by doing away with the traditional motorcade of 80 bullet-proof vehicles, and eschewing the "sprawling" Prime Ministerial Residence in Islamabad [which comes with 524 servants] in favour of the military secretary's "ordinary three-bedroom" suburban gaff. That's a top start for a populist.
But on the downside, he mentioned that if he manages to stamp out corruption, then everyone, and he means everyone, will have to pay their taxes.
Now, everybody knows there's two Herculean asks right there, that are for all intents and purposes, impossible.
All power to yr oars, Immers, you'll need 'em.
Speaking of the Laws surrounding "fair" and "unfair" play, it came as no surprise whatsoever that that dick-wad nut-job turn-coat, that most unrepresentative Senator of the motley crew making up The Unrepresentative Swill, The Hon. Senator for Queensland, Fraser Anning, would drop the "race card" in his maiden speech to the Senate, nine months after being duly elected by the High Court sitting as the Court of Disputed Returns.
This from a bloke who found One Nation was not sufficiently fascist, so he threw his galling lot in with Crazy Bob's Katter Party, just to prove he's much further to the right on the political spectrum than Genghis Khan ever was.
Of course it called for and got widespread condemnation - even the Hon. Senator Hanson described the speech as "appalling" - but people so easily forget the Australian Constitution is littered with race cards that have no hope of ever being repealed, and that a re-introduction of the White Australia Policy would go down a treat with the rednecks among The Deplorables. But you'd have to doubt that it would gain much electoral traction in 21st Century Straya? .
But, what got up my goat was the tree-hugging unreformed Trots down at the Greens calling for a Code of Conduct to be introduced in the Senate. Code of Conduct? What next? Who are they kidding?
Parliamentary privilege is not called a "privilege" for nothing - it should be rarely and wisely used, but MP's, surely,
must have the right to get up in the Parliament and say whatever they bloody well farkin' like, without fear or favour - or
with fear and favour in the case of this certain Queensland publican.
Anyone remember Wilson "Iron Bar" Tuckey? A much better hotelier that Fraze will ever be. And Wilson could do right-wing vitriol right out there with the very best of 'em.
In any case, Anning faces re-election at the next poll as he's a short-term Senator, where he will be plunged into well-deserved life-long obscurity and the entry for him in the little history books will be shorter than that reserved for the likes of everyone who has been disqualified from sitting in the Parliament since PM Trundle's disastrous Double Dissolution - and even the likes the late, great Senator Albert Field will shine like beacons in the texts, compared to this miserable steaming turd.
Seems I didn't miss much being abroad for the "Super Saturday!" round of by-elections, but I did hear that the Pinko's went rather well.
Certainly looks like it put The Fear up PM Trundle - who doesn't like The Fear up him - and now he's made a complete and utter bungle of that world-class cluster-fuck known as The NEG [a bit like that pre-historic shark The MEG, Malcolm, it's coming to eat you whole, after all that flip-flopping you've done on Climate Change through the years. Don't you know that Global Warming is such a hot button issue right now? The Curse of the Former Environment Minister? CO₂ emissions coming clean out of your arse?], and finds whatever credibility he had left in tatters.
So, it's little wonder that a Bald-Faced Dome-Headed Freak Show should creep up behind him and threaten to stab him the back.
How 35 Conservatives in a Party Room of 83 could possibly think that that bonce and that dial could be remotely electable as Prime Minister is beyond mere mortals like me. Is Mr Potato Head the best they can do?
Gorn for all money, they are.
Disunity is Death.
Dead Mal Walking, as one of the fishwraps had it.
There are few finer sights in the Miracle of Democracy than Tories squabbling amongst each other and tearing themselves apart.
After going through the exact same thing during the J.Gillard/Kevin07 Era, the Pinko's must be gloating over the bloodbath.
All good, clean, fun.
