tag:theconversation.com,2011:/us/topics/prime-ministership-7454/articlesPrime ministership – The Conversation2022-08-24T02:21:19Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1892302022-08-24T02:21:19Z2022-08-24T02:21:19ZMorrison and Berejiklian scandals show the importance of trust – and a well-functioning Cabinet<p>In the wake of the controversy over former Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s secret cabinet appointments, there’s talk of the need to formalise the conventions the former prime minister breached. </p>
<p>While codification is sometimes necessary when conventions break down, this ignores the simple truth that cabinet itself is a convention.</p>
<p>At the heart of a well-functioning cabinet is collective responsibility, and most importantly, trust.</p>
<h2>Cabinet is an organic institution</h2>
<p>Cabinet is the apex of political authority in our system, but there isn’t a word about it in the Australian constitution.</p>
<p>It has remained at the heart of executive government in countries that inherited the British tradition because it is an accepted, if ill-defined, organic institution. It is capable of adaptation in changing times and imperatives, and open to a variety of uses by different governments and their leaders.</p>
<p>An Australian constitutional commission in the 1980s explicitly rejected proposals to formalise cabinet’s role and functions.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.pmc.gov.au/news-centre/government/solicitor-general-opinion-validity-appointment-mr-morrison">solicitor-general’s advice to Prime Minister Anthony Albanese</a> this week specifically references the importance of flexibility, noting Australia’s constitutional framers anticipated the institution of responsible government would continue to evolve. </p>
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<h2>Collective responsibility</h2>
<p>That said, a cabinet cannot work if ministers, in particular government leaders (who set the rules for Cabinet), do not respect the fundamentals.</p>
<p>From its origins in 18th century Britain, the primary purpose of cabinet has always been to produce collective decision-making among a group with different outlooks on the world, differing (sometimes conflicting) portfolio responsibilities, and competing ambitions.</p>
<p>Collective responsibility is not just a convention: it’s the essence of a well-functioning cabinet. The British constitutional lawyer, Sir Ivor Jennings, wrote that any government that cannot maintain the discipline of collective responsibility is “riding for a fall”.</p>
<p>When ministers leak against their colleagues or publicly brawl over matters to be determined by cabinet, we know we are witnessing a government in its death throes.</p>
<p>Trust lies at its heart, and good “cabinet craft” is overwhelmingly concerned with maintaining this trust. Those charged with managing cabinet processes have the responsibility to ensure an honest debate that enables ministers to concentrate on agreed facts, and focus on those matters that only they can resolve.</p>
<p>If they are to go out into the public and defend a decision with which they do not agree, ministers must feel they had a reasonable opportunity to convince their colleagues, and lost following a fair debate.</p>
<p>Inevitably, there must be compromise. In a well-functioning cabinet, ministers must be prepared to trust the judgement of the government leader or a colleague. This is why the failure to disclose personal interests is so deeply corrosive. It is also why <a href="https://www.pmc.gov.au/resource-centre/government/cabinet-handbook">cabinet handbooks</a> and <a href="https://www.pmc.gov.au/resource-centre/government/code-conduct-ministers">ministerial codes of conduct</a> are concerned with such matters.</p>
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<h2>Breaching trust</h2>
<p>We await the decision of the New South Wales Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) on the events that led to former NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian’s resignation.</p>
<p>It’s unlikely she broke the law. But in failing to disclose a personal relationship at the heart of several judgement calls, her position as a key member and later head of cabinet became deeply problematic.</p>
<p>From the strong sentiments <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-08-16/karen-andrews-says-morrison-should-resign-as-he-apologises/101336646">expressed by some of his former colleagues</a>, it’s evident Morrison’s failure to declare his assumption of ministerial powers would have undermined his ability to function as an effective prime minister. This was compounded by the fact he presided over a coalition government.</p>
<p>It’s unwise, but not inherently improper, to have two ministers with concurrent powers. Secrecy was the issue here – a breach of trust so profound that the former prime minister lost the confidence of his colleagues when it was disclosed.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/view-from-the-hill-morrison-reverts-to-type-in-an-unconvincing-defence-188911">View from The Hill: Morrison reverts to type in an unconvincing defence</a>
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<p>The solicitor-general concluded that Morrison’s failure to inform the public and the parliament of his appointment to multiple ministries “fundamentally undermined” the principles of responsible government. This is because secrecy rendered impossible their ability to hold ministers accountable.</p>
<p>Given the informality and flexibility of cabinet government, it would be counter-productive to codify these conventions. But there’s a strong case for them to be restated – as they have been in the solicitor-general’s advice.</p>
<p>Government and opposition leaders around the country have been taught an invaluable lesson about the centrality of trust in the efficient working of cabinets. It seems likely that current, former and prospective cabinet ministers will now think more carefully about how they exercise the principle of collective responsibility.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/189230/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Anne Tiernan has previously received research funding from the Australian Research Council (ARC) and the Australia and New Zealand School of Government (ANZSOG). She is a member of the Centre for Policy Development's (CPD) Research Committee.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Gary Sturgess does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Trust is at the heart of a well-functioning cabinet. A cabinet cannot work if ministers do not respect the fundamentals.Anne Tiernan, Adjunct Professor of Politics. Griffith Business School, Griffith UniversityGary Sturgess, Adjunct Professor, Griffith UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1021912018-08-31T02:22:41Z2018-08-31T02:22:41ZAustralian politics and the psychology of revenge<p>It’s hard to read the recent felling of Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull as anything other than an act of revenge by Tony Abbott and his closest supporters. </p>
<p>This is indeed the judgement of former foreign minister and opposition leader Alexander Downer and former Liberal Party treasurer Michael Yabsley, as revealed in ABC’s <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-08-27/liberal-party-elders-lash-tony-abbott-for-acts-of-revenge-on-tu/10166590">Four Corners</a>. </p>
<p>This judgement fits with everything we know about the humiliation and embitterment Abbott and his conservative allies felt after <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/tony-abbott-leadership-challenge-transcript-of-malcolm-turnbulls-blistering-speech-20150914-gjmace.html">Turnbull toppled Abbott</a> in a leadership spill in 2015.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/if-the-liberals-have-any-hope-of-rebuilding-they-might-take-lessons-from-robert-menzies-102102">If the Liberals have any hope of rebuilding, they might take lessons from Robert Menzies</a>
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<p>It also accords with what modern psychology and social science would lead us to expect in circumstances where a person or group experiences what they perceive to be unjust treatment at the hands of an adversary. The feelings of grievance and damage to the ego can often only be ameliorated by revenge against those who inflicted the harm. </p>
<p>Such feelings, and the aggression they cause, apply no less to politicians such as Abbott and his conservative colleagues than they do to anyone else. </p>
<p>How then, can revenge become a force that controls us? </p>
<h2>The emotional basis of revenge</h2>
<p>The predisposition to harm those who are perceived to have harmed us – the essence of <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/review-of-international-studies/article/got-him-revenge-emotions-and-the-killing-of-osama-bin-laden/024447DD04220548C83B45995C29433D">revenge</a> – is a fundamental human desire.</p>
<p>Cultural and legal deterrents against “taking the law into your own hands” might mitigate the destructive potential of vengeful behaviour, but it can never fully remove it.</p>
<p>That’s why we observe revenge in all societies and walks of life, including politics. It’s what Francis Bacon, writing nearly 400 years ago, warned of as a kind of “<a href="http://www.rjgeib.com/thoughts/revenge/revenge.html">wild justice</a>” that can destroy both the avenger and their victim. </p>
<p>While revenge often involves planning and cool calculation (the proverbial “dish best served cold”), psychologists and social scientists have long recognised it’s always premised on <a href="http://science.sciencemag.org/content/305/5688/1246">particular emotions</a>. </p>
<p>Shame and humiliation, typically caused by the perceived erosion of respect and esteem in the eyes of others, are particularly important instigators of vengeful thoughts and actions. When others undermine our feelings of self worth, this often triggers resentment and rage and the desire to strike back against one’s tormentors. </p>
<p>Doing so constitutes a form of <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/ejsp.782">emotionally gratifying communication</a>. The avenger “teaches” the object of revenge a lesson. They make the victim of revenge feel what they once felt, communicating a psychologically satisfying message of righteous redress to the victim, third parties and, most importantly, themselves. </p>
<p>The substance of this message varies, but typically includes assertions about the resolve of the avenger to uphold rights that have been violated, to preserve respect that has been threatened, and to shore up social and personal honour that has been besmirched. The avenger demonstrates to themselves and the world they are somebody not to be crossed. </p>
<p>Psychologically, this helps the avenger restore an ego deflated by their previous humiliations. Revenge, to put it bluntly, helps the humiliated person feel better about themselves. It helps them cope. They take satisfaction in the knowledge the source of previous harms is now being punished, and that they deserve their punishment. This is why revenge has often been described as “sweet”. </p>
<p>Modern neuroscience and psychology affirms that <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/ejsp.782">revenge is indeed sweet</a>. Inflicting harm on those who have previously harmed us arouses feelings of pleasure in those parts of the brain regulating emotion. Even thinking about or planning revenge - the so called “revenge fantasy” - releases feel-good chemicals in our brains. </p>
<p>This is why we can become so preoccupied and even obsessed with vengeful thoughts. The more we think about revenge, the more we reinforce neural pathways that trigger those thoughts and release those chemicals. We can become addicted to the feeling of revenge, which can lend a certain vindictive cast to a person’s character. </p>
<p>Such a character trait typically manifests itself when the person feels themselves, or persons and groups with whom they identify, to be the victim of an injustice. Revenge fulfils what justice demands. Revenge erases unjust humiliations. It turns the world right side up again. Vengeful acts are thus always redemptive acts – or at least, that is the hope. More often than not, they end up being hugely destructive acts.</p>
<p>The destructiveness of revenge - a common literary theme from the ancient Greeks, through Shakespeare to contemporary writers - can be understood in two senses. </p>
<p>On the one hand, the victim and perpetrator of revenge can both be damaged. The reasons are obvious in the case of the victim. For the perpetrator, the destructiveness arises from being consumed by vengeance. This can overtake all rational judgement about what is in the avenger’s interests, and what is a proportional response to a perceived harm. Sometimes, no price seems too high to pay to realise revenge. </p>
<p>On the other hand, revenge can be hugely destructive because it unleashes cycles of further revenge and counter revenge. Anthropologists <a href="https://anthrosource.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1525/aa.1985.87.3.02a00590">confirm instances</a> of tribal warfare in the New Guinea Highlands, and blood feuds in Mediterranean peasant societies, where cycles of revenge have lasted for generations, long after the source of the original conflict has been forgotten. </p>
<p>Today’s political parties are not immune to such human failings. In fact, where towering personal ambitions meet huge but often fragile egos, vengeful behaviour is inevitable. </p>
<p>While all of this <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2018/aug/23/a-form-of-madness-turnbull-castigates-opponents-as-he-buys-time-for-morrison">“madness”</a>, as Turnbull called it, was not just the product of vengeance - deep ideological fractures within the Liberal Party and Australia more generally were just as important - it was nonetheless a key ingredient. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/grattan-on-friday-the-high-costs-of-our-destructive-coup-culture-102416">Grattan on Friday: The high costs of our destructive coup culture</a>
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<p>Conservatives harnessed vengeful motives to their broader efforts to re-capture the Liberal Party. In so doing, they became slaves to their emotions, animosities and personal ambitions. They will now pay the electoral price. </p>
<p>When they do, we can expect further vengeful recriminations. Such is the logic of “wild justice.”</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/102191/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lloyd Cox does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The psychology of revenge and how shame and humiliation can cause chaos in Australian politics.Lloyd Cox, Lecturer, Department of Modern History, Politics and International Relations, Macquarie UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/537412016-02-01T23:57:54Z2016-02-01T23:57:54ZLacking a script, individuals drove the evolution of prime ministerial power<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/109561/original/image-20160128-27180-11ia9d8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">John Curtin and Ben Chifley were successful in expanding the power of the Commonwealth – and thus that of the prime minister.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Alan Porritt</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The Australian Federation was established to address issues that seemed best resolved collectively rather than by each of the colonies acting alone (such as in defence), to co-ordinate activities that would benefit from uniformity (such as immigration and postal services), and to break down barriers to national economic development (like border tariffs between colonies). </p>
<p>The constitution’s purpose was to define specific powers, to be exercised at federal level, with all residual powers to remain with the states. In deference to established ideas of states’ sovereignty, federal power was intentionally circumscribed. In effect the prime minister’s power was constrained.</p>
<p>The issue for each prime minister described in our new book, <a href="https://www.mup.com.au/items/163675">Settling the Office: The Australian Prime Ministership from Federation to Reconstruction</a>, was how to work effectively within those bounds. Almost all at some stage decided that the limitation of the prime minister’s remit was unequal to the challenge and tried to amend the Constitution. </p>
<p>Only four out of the 24 referenda they initiated were passed:</p>
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<li><p>one (second Deakin ministry, 1906) to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_referendum,_1906">enable concurrent elections</a> for both houses of parliament;</p></li>
<li><p>one (third Deakin ministry, 1910) allowing the Commonwealth to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_referendum,_1910_(State_Debts)">take over state debt</a>; </p></li>
<li><p>one (under Stanley Bruce, 1928) <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_referendum,_1928">establishing the Loan Council</a>; and </p></li>
<li><p>one (under Ben Chifley, 1946) allowing the Commonwealth to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_referendum,_1946_(Social_Services)">legislate</a> for the provision of social services. </p></li>
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<p>Despite these frustrations, prime ministers embraced <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ajph.12084/abstract">the view</a> that their office was “the blue ribbon of the highest possible ambition”. Each would share something of Edmund Barton’s goal to create <a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.13110/antipodes.28.1.0141">“a nation for a continent”</a>. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/109735/original/image-20160131-3894-gkt3h5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/109735/original/image-20160131-3894-gkt3h5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/109735/original/image-20160131-3894-gkt3h5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=926&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/109735/original/image-20160131-3894-gkt3h5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=926&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/109735/original/image-20160131-3894-gkt3h5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=926&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/109735/original/image-20160131-3894-gkt3h5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1164&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/109735/original/image-20160131-3894-gkt3h5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1164&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/109735/original/image-20160131-3894-gkt3h5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1164&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<p>The leadership task was to harness those twin drives, of personal ambition and national creation, to the resolution of concrete questions. How was a prime minister to identify “national” issues and to become the national voice for collective action? And how could he gain the authority to speak and act in the national interest?</p>
<h2>The prime ministership’s changing nature</h2>
<p>Alfred Deakin and his contemporaries invented the Australian prime ministership. But it was not settled as a platform for national leadership until John Curtin and Chifley managed to turn it into the pivot of government to which we have since become accustomed.</p>
<p>Its evolution from the early Federation years to the postwar nation-building years was not a matter of linear progression. There was no grand design to guide it, no “Canberra consensus” to drive it forward. The office was made up as its holders went along. They shaped what it meant to be prime minister through their personal leadership styles and their responses to the circumstances they encountered.</p>
<p>Precedent, procedure and public service support structures could not be leveraged to provide the prime minister with an institutional authority that could be wielded when other political powerhouses – state premiers, partyrooms and factions – flexed their muscles. They simply did not yet exist. </p>
<p>Neither were foreign examples, even obvious ones such as Britain or Canada, turned to in search for a script for the office.</p>
<p>The absence of such a script allowed for the great stylistic contrasts between Deakin, Andrew Fisher, Billy Hughes and Bruce in particular. Who leads a government matters – it always does – but in the early decades of the Australian Commonwealth it perhaps mattered most.</p>
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<span class="caption">As prime minister, Billy Hughes personalised every battle.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Alan Porritt</span></span>
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<p>For the early prime ministers there was little else to fall back on but their personal skills, zest and wits. Much would depend on individual preferences: to capitalise on charisma (Deakin), to personalise every battle (Hughes), to insist on process (Bruce), to prioritise the cause (Fisher). There was little administrative support. Cabinet processes were informal and fluid.</p>
<p>Parliamentary majorities, delivered by a disciplined party system, were not yet assured. Some prime ministers, such as Fisher and Bruce, took an interest in building up institutional arrangements for the office. Others, particularly Hughes but also James Scullin and Joseph Lyons, ignored or abolished some of the fledgling support mechanisms their predecessors had put in place. </p>
<p>All had to learn the exercise of party management, cabinet discipline, proper administration and public communication as the preconditions for authority.</p>
<p>What the early prime ministers had in common, however, was that they lacked institutional clout. The initial federal settlement had delivered scant powers to the Commonwealth. All prime ministers from Barton to Chifley struggled to appropriate more, in protracted, sometimes intense and often frustrating clashes with the states, industry and the unions. </p>
<p>Bruce saw most clearly the need to develop the office as a public institution with the processes and resources to ensure control. But facing an extraneous challenge – economic decline – he would over-reach. His institution-building was subsequently eroded. The cleanest route for changing the balance of powers in favour of the Commonwealth government – by referendum – rarely delivered the desired outcomes.</p>
<p>Instead, prime ministers often depended upon critical moments created by unusual external events to provide them with a rationale to wage such battles. The two world wars in particular provided opportunities for increasing the power of the Commonwealth – and thus for the prime minister. </p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/109564/original/image-20160129-27156-13ysw0n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/109564/original/image-20160129-27156-13ysw0n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=792&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/109564/original/image-20160129-27156-13ysw0n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=792&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/109564/original/image-20160129-27156-13ysw0n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=792&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/109564/original/image-20160129-27156-13ysw0n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=995&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/109564/original/image-20160129-27156-13ysw0n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=995&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/109564/original/image-20160129-27156-13ysw0n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=995&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Robert Menzies didn’t have the political momentum to use the war to increase federal power.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP</span></span>
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<p>In 1914, Fisher no longer had the stamina to try; Hughes seized the moment energetically but erratically. Twenty years later, Menzies lacked political momentum to exploit the advent of war to increase federal power.</p>
<p>Curtin and Chifley did so more methodically and much more successfully. They took hold of the purse strings, laid the foundations of a national welfare state, and built a professional federal public service. They succeeded where their mentor Scullin had failed when he was confronted with that other great international crisis – the Depression.</p>
<p>Instead of being able to leverage it to strengthen the office, Menzies had been overwhelmed by the divisions that the challenge had created in his party and across the country. And he could not call on the emergency powers conferred by war.</p>
<p>But even a deft institution-builder like Chifley would experience the limits of prime-ministerial power when he tried to nationalise banking, even though, by 1949, the office had acquired institutional clout. His failure of judgement is a salutary reminder that while we need to understand the possibilities of the institution – and the historical contingencies in which it is enmeshed – we must never lose sight of the character of our leaders.</p>
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<p><em>This is an edited extract from <a href="https://www.mup.com.au/items/163675">Settling the Office: The Australian Prime Ministership from Federation to Reconstruction</a> by Paul Strangio, Paul ‘t Hart and James Walter (The Miegunyah Press).</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/53741/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Paul Strangio's research for this study was supported by an Australian Research Council Discovery Grant.
</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>James Walter receives ARC funding.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Paul 't Hart receives ARC funding.</span></em></p>Alfred Deakin and his contemporaries invented the Australian prime ministership. But it was not settled as a platform for national leadership until John Curtin and Ben Chifley’s time.Paul Strangio, Associate Professor of Politics, Monash UniversityJames Walter, Professor of Political Science, Monash UniversityPaul 't Hart, Professor of Public Administration, Utrecht School of Governance, Utrecht UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/414142015-05-07T22:40:25Z2015-05-07T22:40:25ZElection 2015: Conservatives gain in England, SNP rampant across Scotland – experts react<p>Results appear to be backing an <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election-2015-32633099">exit poll</a> for the 2015 UK election that predicted a better than expected performance for the Conservative Party. It suggested the Tories will win 316 seats – not far short to the 326 seats needed for a majority. Meanwhile, Labour has gone backwards, falling to a predicted 239 (down from 256); the SNP has made record gains in Scotland, winning 56 seats; and the Liberal Democrats are in freefall.</p>
<p>Our expert panel is on hand to explain what it all means.</p>
<hr>
<p><strong>Victoria Honeyman, Lecturer in British Politics at the University of Leeds</strong></p>
<p>It’s been an extraordinary night, largely because the exit polls had thrown absolutely everybody. Comres, IPSOS, YouGov and co had all said it would be very close. As soon as the exit polls came out it threw everything into flux. But there was no reason to doubt them – the 2010 exit polls were very accurate and the same people were involved this time around.</p>
<p>The Lib Dems saw it coming, but Labour certainly didn’t. In space of eight hours Labour supporters have gone from thinking their man would be in Downing St to wondering who their next leader is. It would be very surprising if Ed Miliband doesn’t now resign and yet this isn’t really his fault. Miliband was faced with a problem all party leaders have in common with football managers: they’re expected to gain success quickly. Leaders that can’t win elections know their time is up. </p>
<p>Miliband had two issues. Whether it was the famous bacon sandwich or because he looks like Wallace from Wallace & Grommit, the electorate never warmed to him as a leader.</p>
<p>He also tried to move away from New Labour rhetoric. Tony Blair said if you created wealth you could level a country up. Blair’s aide Peter Mandelson famously said he was “intensely relaxed about people getting filthy rich as long as they pay their taxes”. </p>
<p>Miliband said he did care how rich you get. He wanted to return Labour to different ideology, creating a position where you rebalance society, and improve things for core members of society. But the public didn’t think he was selling a message they could get on board with. </p>
<p>Nick Clegg has hinted he may be stand down, but most predicted this anyway. An awful lot of his party’s old guard is also gone – people who would have possibly challenged him such as Ed Davey, Jo Swinson or Danny Alexander. This really does leave the party in a tricky position as there is such a small group of potential leaders left. </p>
<p>The Lib Dems are no longer the third party – that’s the SNP, by quite a margin. A new leader will help but the party really needs a totally different strategy. Moving into government for the first time is very difficult process for any party as they go from being able to promise anything to a position of being practical. Seen historically, parties tend to find it tough – just look at Labour in the 1920s. The Lib Dems must regroup and that means rebuilding from the grassroots. This is what built their support in the 1990s as the party went from occasional victories in local politics, to running councils, to winning more MPs, and eventually the big breakthrough in Westminster.</p>
<p>The SNP had a number of things going for them. First Alex Salmond was no longer their leader. This had a massive impact. Salmond was a “Marmite figure” – you either loved him or you hated him. Nicola Sturgeon is very astute, and much more popular. </p>
<p>The party was also selling an easy anti-austerity message, very popular with voters tired of spending cuts. No one wants to be in the position of selling austerity. The SNP also hooked onto the idea that Scottish Labour was too integrated with its Westminster counterparts. </p>
<p>There is a natural tendency to believe SNP voters all support independence. But many SNP supporters simply want MPs who will go to Westminster and fight to get the best deal for Scotland, which they believe Scottish Labour MPs couldn’t do. That is their job after all; to do the best for Scotland. </p>
<hr>
<p><strong>Rainbow Murray, Reader in Politics at Queen Mary University of London</strong></p>
<p>Labour is normally the best party for women so the Tories have gained at women’s expense. Austerity has hit women hardest because women are the primary beneficiaries of welfare services and benefits that got cut during austerity. Many of the public sector workers who got laid off were women. The Tory manifesto promised more cuts including more cuts to benefits and more emphasis on the Big Society, which asks volunteers, who are usually women, to take over services that used to be provided by the state.</p>
<p>Nicola Sturgeon is one woman who has been very successful with SNP making huge gains in Scotland. There’s a dual effect – she has been an extremely successful leader and there is also a legacy from the independence referendum. The Scottish people decided not to secede from the Union but have asserted their national identity by voting for the SNP in the majority of cases. So the next parliament is going to be very interesting – we’ll have a referendum on Europe and we may well have another referendum on Scotland.</p>
<p>The story that’s rocking academia is that the opinion polls were so far off in their prediction. Congratulations must go to the exit poll team. When they announced their poll at 10pm, many people said they were wrong but at 6am it looks like they were accurate. How did every other pollster get it so wrong? One phenomenon put forward as an explanation is “shy Tories” who won’t admit to voting Conservative and yet do. </p>
<hr>
<p><strong>Eric Shaw, Senior Lecturer in Politics at University of Stirling</strong></p>
<p>Labour has been contracting in Scotland for a while. There has been a certain reluctance to address trends which were eating away at the party’s strength, and have accelerated largely because of the referendum. Despite the warning, the party was caught unaware. No-one anticipated the Tsunami.</p>
<p>On television, commentators like Peter Kellner and Andrew Marr were quick to advise that Labour return to the “successful” Blairite New Labour formula with a stronger pro-business orientation, a distancing from the unions and working-class voters and an alignment with the (largely mythical) Middle England.</p>
<p>The calculation of New Labour strategists was that working-class voters had nowhere else to go so they could be largely ignored. But many abstained, and in Scotland they had another option – voting for the SNP, which many have taken in hordes. </p>
<p>There are no quick answers for the party in Scotland because the problems it faces are fundamental. Modifying policy won’t do, because most people take no interest in policy detail. What matters are question of purpose, identity and belonging; and of representation. It means Scottish Labour transforming itself into a movement, a cause and a vocation as well as an election-winning machine.</p>
<p>If the party was to make three changes in Scotland, I would suggest the following. First a radical alteration of the party’s relationship with the UK party, for example becoming an independent party but one affiliated to the British party. This could be along the lines of the relationship between the Bavarian CSU (which operates only in Bavaria) and the larger CDU which operates in the rest of Germany. The CSU is independent but in permanent alliance with the Christian Democrats. </p>
<p>Second, the party should launch a very wide-ranging and independent enquiry into what went wrong, talking to activists, officials and candidates, the unions, academic researchers and all interested bodies. Its tasks would include analysing social trends, shifts in cultural and socioeconomic patterns and motivations guiding voter decisions.</p>
<p>Most important of all, the party has to give deep thought to some absolutely basic issues. What do we exist for? What is the role of the party? What are the values and visions we wish to embed in social organisation? What do we really stand for – is there a Labour “soul”?</p>
<p>And it must above all avoid the bland, anodyne and banal platitudes in which New Labour in particular specialised, such as “opportunities for all”, “widening social justice”, “a more aspirational society” and “One Nation Labour”: all motherhood and apple pie. All in all, it will be a job that should take a while.</p>
<hr>
<p><strong>Stuart Wilks-Heeg, Head of Politics at University of Liverpool</strong></p>
<p>Conservative Esther McVey has lost the seat of Wirral West to Labour candidate Margaret Greenwood. There are several constituencies in the north west where Labour has increased its majority or vote share, but with the exception of Wirral West, this follows a pattern seen elsewhere of Labour gaining seats from the Liberal Democrats.</p>
<p>I had thought four Lib Dems would hold on in the north west but it could be fewer than that. We’ve seen some really big vote shares for UKIP, which has been getting double-digit vote shares almost everywhere in the north west and the party will be very well placed to challenge Labour in the next general election.</p>
<p>UKIP is not going to make the kind of gains that its candidates hoped for on the east coast. I think UKIP has realised that in places like the north west where the Conservatives were long ago displaced as a serious contender, and with the squeeze on the Lib Dems over the past five yers, the opportunity is there to take on Labour. That’s a vacuum they are capable of filling in 2020.</p>
<p>The Lib Dems are being punished for some of the decisions they made. The decision on tution fees was catastrophic and led to a decline in their poll rating from which they’ve never recovered. This is a shocking result. People like Vince Cable losing their seats throws the party into crisis to an extent that no-one thought possible.</p>
<p>If there are only ten Lib Dem MPs left, and that’s what could be needed for the Conservatives to form a coalition government, then Nick Clegg and his colleagues face a massive decison. The prospect of being locked into another coalition for five years would destroy the party. Whatever they do they need to rebuild. It took them decades to build up to their 57 seats in 2010 and now they’ve been pushed back to where they were in the 70s and perhaps worse. They’ve got a huge task to rebuild from here – it’s going to be really tough.</p>
<hr>
<p><strong>Craig McAngus, Research Fellow at the University of Stirling</strong></p>
<p>The incredible thing about these results is that it now looks as though the polls under-predicted what would happen in Scotland. We may well be looking at a clean sweep of seats and a share well in excess of 50%. In terms of what this means for a second referendum, it goes back to the two traditional wings of the SNP: do you take the fundamentalist approach and push for a new poll quickly or do you go with the gradualists and gradually build up to it? </p>
<p>If there had been a Labour government, it would have been much more suited to the gradualist argument. But because the SNP will be in opposition, the emphasis will switch much more to the Scottish parliamentary party, and its ability to affect progress towards independence. With the SNP as part of the opposition, it’ll have to act in reaction to what the UK government does as opposed to being in a position to affect what it does.</p>
<p>The legitimacy question in Scotland is going to be even worse than the darkest days of Thatcher. It will mean that any action by the UK government that materially affects big issues like the constitution, or welfare, or economic policy could become the sort of change that Nicola Sturgeon has repeatedly said might be grounds for a second referendum. This will be much more the case than if the SNP was backing a minority Labour government.</p>
<p>Then of course there is the EU referendum, which now looks more likely than the polls suggested. If the UK votes to leave but Scotland votes to stay, that is certainly seen as the sort of material change that Sturgeon had in mind.</p>
<hr>
<p><strong>Peter Lynch, Senior Lecturer in Politics at the University of Stirling</strong></p>
<p>In Scotland, it looks like the exit poll is proving completely accurate. When you see results like Douglas Alexander’s in Paisley, losing by 5,000 seats, it’s not even close.</p>
<p>It was thought that Labour would scrape home in some of these seats with a couple of hundred votes, but the party is getting buried. It’s not even like a normal landslide, where the other parties still get to keep seats. The only scuttlebutt looks to be the Labour seat of Edinburgh South. If it wins there, it will be through tactical voting. </p>
<p>I was quite sceptical about this. Even this week I thought the SNP would win 30 or maybe 40 seats. I have always been a first-past-the-post sceptic. It was very tough for the SNP in the Scottish election in 2007, and even in 2011. It was having to overturn majorities in places where the people had voted Labour or Lib Dem for many years. And it was always particularly rubbish in Westminster elections. Until recently, the SNP even struggled to get its activists to take those elections seriously.</p>
<p>The big question is the implications of another Tory-dominated government. Of course the Tory offer to Scotland, with input from the other parties, is contained in the proposals from the <a href="https://theconversation.com/can-new-powers-for-scotland-really-be-delivered-within-promised-timescale-33960">Smith Commission</a>.</p>
<p>No doubt there will now be discussions between the SNP and the Tories about what more might be included. The tenor is likely to be that the SNP will be told that it can have more powers, such as in welfare, but it will have to finance them from within Scotland. There was a potential deal between the coalition and the Scottish government prior to the Scotland Act on the basis that there would not be a referendum. Strangely we are now more or less back to that position. </p>
<hr>
<p><strong>Louise Thompson, Lecturer in British Politics at University of Surrey</strong></p>
<p>As the results are now beginning to flood in we are seeing the sheer scale of change in this election. We all knew we would see massive SNP gains in Scotland and that the UKIP vote would be strong, but seeing the size of the swing to Sturgeon’s SNP in the latest results is astonishing.</p>
<p>For such a long time British politics has felt predictable to voters in safe seats and voting at all has felt pointless, but now we are seeing big political figures losing their seats as Scotland turns from red to yellow. Whatever the outcome, the people of Scotland certainly won’t be complaining that their votes don’t count. </p>
<hr>
<p><strong>Jennifer Thomson, PhD Candidate, School of Politics and International Relations, Queen Mary University of London</strong></p>
<p>An interesting night for the DUP: they have retained seven of their seats, gained one more, in East Belfast, while losing South Antrim to the UUP. Naomi Long, Alliance, won East Belfast in 2010. This was a bitter defeat for the DUP, and winning it back was key for them this time around. Gavin Robinson now represents the seat for the DUP.</p>
<p>The UUP are back at Westminster with one representative after their candidate Danny Knahan beat the DUP incumbent Willie McCrea in a shock result. Nonetheless, with 8 seats the DUP will now probably be the fifth largest party in Westminster. </p>
<p>The party were outspoken in the run-up to the election. They said they would be open to a deal with either of the two main parties on the basis of two key conditions: the removal of the bedroom tax and a referendum on EU membership. A deal with the Conservatives has always appeared more likely, and they may potentially be in line to form a coalition or prop up a minority government.</p>
<hr>
<p><strong>Roger Scully, Professor of Political Science at Cardiff University</strong></p>
<p>In Wales, the Conservatives look set to have their most seats since the height of Thatcherism in 1983, while it’s a disaster for the Lib Dems. The Tories have won seats in the more Anglicised parts of Wales, such as Brecon & Radnorshire along the border and Vale of Clywd, near to north-west England. The party has the same appeal in these areas as it does in rural England.</p>
<p>Plaid Cymru’s vote share has gone up a bit, and it has done ok in terms of holding onto existing seats. However it looks like it’s missed out on target seats and will score fewer Welsh votes than UKIP. Given the higher-profile the party enjoyed thanks to Leanne Wood’s participation in the debates this has to count as a failure.</p>
<p>Plaid ran a decent campaign but has been a weaker party than the SNP for at least a decade – and Wales didn’t have a referendum to rally people behind the idea of independence.</p>
<p>The party tried to get “fair funding for Wales” – parity with Scotland – onto the agenda but it doesn’t seem to have worked. The big issues were largely the same as elsewhere: the economy, jobs, health and immigration.</p>
<p>Despite its relative failures, Labour should remain Wales’s biggest party in terms of both votes and seats, for the 20th election in a row. But this won’t be reflected in Westminster, where the Conservatives look set to run the government. In the 1980s this split between Wales and Westminster stirred up nationalism which led to devolution a decade later. We won’t see anything as dramatic this time around, but Labour badly needs to put things back together before Welsh assembly elections next year.</p>
<hr>
<p><strong>Sophie Whiting, Lecturer in the Department of Politics at University of Liverpool</strong></p>
<p>Few of Northern Ireland’s 18 seats were predicted to change hands during this general election campaign. East Belfast however has been one of the key battlegrounds during the 2015 campaign.</p>
<p>Rewind to 2010 and the shock of the general election in Northern Ireland was Peter Robinson, leader of the DUP and First Minister, loosing his seat in East Belfast, a seat he had held since 1979. With a majority of more than 1,500 votes, Naomi Long gave the Alliance Party their first seat in Westminster.</p>
<p>In 2015 the DUP threw everything they could at recapturing East Belfast, including a fresh faced parliamentary candidate, Gavin Robinson (no relation to Peter) and agreeing to an electoral pact with the Ulster Unionist Party. The UUP agreed to step aside in East and North Belfast to increase the chances of a DUP win whilst the DUP stood aside in two other constituencies – and it paid off.</p>
<p>A win in East Belfast for the DUP by more than 2,500 votes has helped maintain DUP hopes for returning a sizeable block of MPs to Westminster. After losing South Antrim to the UUP, East Belfast was even more important for the DUP if they wanted play a decisive role at Westminster. The party have been clear that they would be happy to support either a Labour or Conservative minority government under certain conditions. For the DUP, East Belfast is a step towards more power and influence in Westminster politics.</p>
<hr>
<p><strong>Jonathan Tonge, Professor of Politics at University of Liverpool</strong></p>
<p>If the Conservatives come up short of a majority, and get 316 seats as the exit poll suggests, then they could be carried over the line and into government by a confidence and supply deal with the DUP’s eight predicted MPs, and the UUP’s new MP. These nine extra seats could take the Conservatives past the 323 seats they realistically need. DUP members prefer the Conservatives to Labour at a ratio of seven to one, and rank 8/10 on a scale toward the right of the political spectrum, which makes them natural bedfellows for the Conservatives. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/80934/original/image-20150508-1212-vh3pvg.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/80934/original/image-20150508-1212-vh3pvg.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/80934/original/image-20150508-1212-vh3pvg.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/80934/original/image-20150508-1212-vh3pvg.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/80934/original/image-20150508-1212-vh3pvg.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/80934/original/image-20150508-1212-vh3pvg.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=592&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/80934/original/image-20150508-1212-vh3pvg.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=592&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/80934/original/image-20150508-1212-vh3pvg.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=592&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Natural bedfellows.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Jonathan Tonge</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This would be a good thing for the Conservatives – the DUP are a disciplined party: if they say they’re going to work with the Conservatives, then they will. Realistically, the Liberal Democrats are not going to be keen to do another deal, given the damage the coalition has done to them for this election. In contrast, a deal with the Conservatives would be unlikely to damage the DUP in Northern Ireland. </p>
<p>When it comes to coalition negotiations, the first demand on the table will be more money for Northern Ireland. A figure of £1 billion has been floated, but this is not the official position of the party. The DUP support more money on defence, and are keen to see the UK reach the 2% NATO target on defence spending. They also support a referendum on EU membership and tougher immigration controls. </p>
<p>The only sticking point might be the bedroom tax – the DUP do not support the tax and would like to see it scrapped across the UK. The DUP are right wing in a lot of ways, particularly on constitutional issues, but they have a strong working class support base. So there might be arguments about the bedroom tax, but it’s unlikely to be a dealbreaker. </p>
<p>Another consideration is that the DUP would be looking for guarantees to secure Northern Ireland’s devolved power on matters such as same sex marriage and abortion – the latter is almost illegal in Northern Ireland. There would be pressure from within the UK – and to some extent from within Northern Ireland – for more liberal laws, but the DUP would be looking for assurances that these matters would remain devolved. </p>
<hr>
<p><strong>Michael Saward, Professor in Politics at the University of Warwick</strong></p>
<p>The big story of the night is Scotland. I don’t know if you can have a revolution by electoral means these days but if you can, this is as close as it gets. </p>
<p>With the SNP predicted to win almost all of Scotland’s 59 seats and with Alex Salmond in Westminster, a second independence referendum certainly looks a few years closer than it did yesterday. Given Nicola Sturgeon’s insistence that this was not a vote about independence, Salmond will have to play it carefully politically but a complete lack of Scottish representation in the UK government would only add more pressure for a referendum.</p>
<p>The second biggest story is the EU referendum. The certainty of a vote on UK membership has firmed up and there will be pressure to hold the vote in the earlier half of the next parliament.</p>
<p>If the Conservatives come away with anything above 210 sets, the most likely outcome is a Conservative minority government. The right of the party will not want to team up with the Liberal Democrats again and would most likely prefer an informal arrangement with the DUP. A Conservative minority government could lose a vote or two in the House of Commons but could continue with the confidence of the House.</p>
<p>The exit poll is probably right, which means Paddy Ashdown will have to eat some sort of hat. I think he knows that. And opinion pollsters will have to re-examine their navels. They had thought they had resolved their biggest issues a few years ago but they are going to have to have a rethink. </p>
<hr>
<p><strong>Neil Matthews, Research Fellow, School of Politics, International Studies and Philosophy at Queen’s University Belfast</strong></p>
<p>Declarations are trickling in across Northern Ireland’s 18 constituencies – and set against the “electoral tsunami” occurring in Scotland, events across the Irish Sea might appear rather dull. That said there has been one shock in the form of the UUP’s Danny Kinihan ousting the DUP in South Antrim. This sees a return for the UUP to the green benches of Westminster.</p>
<p>Elsewhere, as widely anticipated, the DUP has held its seats in Lagan Valley, North Antrim, Strangford and Upper Bann – indications are that it will also record a gain in East Belfast and see Westminster leader, Nigel Dodds, returned in North Belfast.</p>
<p>The SDLP has succeeded in Foyle and is polling well in its two other strongholds of South Belfast and South Down. It is likely then that the party will retain its compliment of three seats.</p>
<p>For Sinn Fein there is only one result to report – comfortably returning an MP in West Tyrone.</p>
<hr>
<p><strong>Catherine Happer, Research Associate at the Glasgow University Media Group</strong></p>
<p>So far the TV coverage has been coloured by the exit polls, which have genuinely astounded people. Because the politicians all prepare what they are going to say, it’s made them particularly cautious, stilted and unwilling to talk about hypotheticals. They are stuck in a bubble of disbelief. It could have been a very exciting night, but we have become bound by a sense of interviewees not being able to take this seriously yet. </p>
<p>My moment of the night so far would be Paddy Ashdown saying he would eat his hat if the Lib Dem forecast of 10 seats came true. He simply refused to believe the polls. Then he said a bit later that he would eat his hat if it was made of marzipan. By the end of the night, he’ll probably be saying, “bring the hat over here”. </p>
<p>More broadly, the influence of the press is one of the big stories of the night. There was much discussion prior to the exit polls that had Miliband managed to make it into office, it would have been a historic win because he would have done so without much press support. Now we are back to the old picture of “It Was The Sun Wot Won It”. </p>
<p>Obviously we saw very strong press backing for the Conservatives and scaremongering about Ed Miliband. Some of it has been vile, not over his policies but about how he eats a <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/may/06/sun-ed-miliband-labour-mail-telegraph-election">bacon sandwich</a> or <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/general-election-2015/11575631/Watch-Ed-Miliband-trips-off-the-stage-following-Question-Time-leaders-special.html">tripping</a> over the stage on BBC Question Time. The other big angle has been the <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/mar/09/tory-election-poster-ed-miliband-pocket-snp-alex-salmond">demonisation of the SNP</a>, of course. </p>
<p>The jury is still out on the impact of the TV debates. They probably gave Miliband a chance to represent himself in a more three-dimensional light. But on television, the press were able to very much narrow the parameters of the debate, forcing the focus on the deficit, Labour’s record in office and so forth. </p>
<hr>
<p><strong>Charles Lees, Professor of Politics at the University of Bath</strong></p>
<p>If the exit poll is accurate and the Conservatives are able to govern alone, the Union of Great Britain and Northern Ireland could well be over within a decade.</p>
<p>A minority Tory government will not only have to manage a hostile House of Commons; it will also be at the mercy of its Eurosceptic backbenchers. David Cameron has pledged to hold a referendum on Europe but, under pressure from these backbenchers, the negotiations will be more difficult than they might have been. A sceptical and perhaps hostile EU will not be in a position to grant Cameron all he needs to please them.</p>
<p>If the UK as a whole (that means England) looks likely to leave the EU then the SNP will go to the country in the Scottish polls seeking a mandate to run a second referendum. In the current climate, it might well win. </p>
<p>Any Scottish exit from the UK, especially combined with a UK exit from the EU, would destabilise Northern Ireland in unforeseeable ways. Certainly, nationalists and republicans would want Northern Ireland to throw in its lot with the republic and remain in the EU. The Unionists would be torn between loyalty to the union, an instinctive affinity with the Scots, and also fears of commercial meltdown for a province with a fragile economy, that is reliant on trade with the south but now stranded outside the EU. </p>
<p>No-one can be sure how this would all end but you would have to be a supreme optimist to think it would end well. At the very least, a Constitutional Convention will be needed with a radical brief to think the unthinkable. The UK tradition of evolutionary change will no longer suffice.</p>
<hr>
<p><strong>David Cutts, Reader in Political Science at the University of Bath</strong></p>
<p>It’s very unlikely that the exit poll is too far off. At most they may have over-egged it by about 20 seats for the Conservatives. </p>
<p>The exit polls are indicating that 15 or 20 Conservative seats have gone to Labour, which is just over a 1% swing. It suggests that Labour is doing better against the Conservatives in Labour strongholds, but in the marginals it is flatlining completely.</p>
<p>I would expect UKIP to do very well in Labour-held areas. Its strategy is to get as many second places as possible. The story is about Labour voters that feel Labour doesn’t represent them and see UKIP as a viable alternative. </p>
<p>It looks like UKIP will hold Clacton and win Thurrock because of support from Labour voters. The question will be what happens to them in places like Boston & Skegness, Great Yarmouth and of course Thanet South, where it looks like Nigel Farage might not win. In relation to the exit polls, the question for UKIP is how spread across the country its vote is. In reality we are expecting UKIP to take support from across the population. </p>
<p>With the Lib Dems, the same sort of logic could mean that they end up with rather more seats than the 10 that was forecast in the exit poll. It is possible that if it got less than a 6% vote in about 580 to 600 seats, it could mean it got over 30% in a good number of others. If they drop to 10 seats that would suggest capitulation in the Conservative-Lib Dem battlegrounds.</p>
<p>My estimate is that the SNP will win about 52 seats in Scotland. It would be wrong for the left in England to blame the SNP for Labour’s failure. If Labour was seeing swings of 4% or 5% in Labour-Conservative marginals, it would be looking at winning 40 or 50 seats in England and not just 15 or 20. Labour’s failure to take seats away from the Conservatives is really what will have stopped it from winning at the UK level. </p>
<hr>
<p><strong>John Van Reenen, Director, Centre for Economic Performance and Professor of Economics at the London School of Economics</strong></p>
<p>If the polls are right the Conservatives have done much better than expected – they’d be in the driving seat. There seems no chance Labour could form a government.</p>
<p>A Conservative/Liberal Democrat coalition seems the most likely option, and this will almost certainly mean a referendum on EU membership. This will be the main issue over the next few years – a Brexit could cause serious damage to the UK economy. Markets like stability, and the uncertainty could make the UK a less desirable destination for foreign direct investment.</p>
<p>Conservative economic plans may be tempered to some degree by the Lib Dems but the two aren’t all that far apart. Adjustments will be made through tough cuts to public spending rather than tax rises.</p>
<p>The past five years have been a pretty awful time for the UK economy so it’s surprising the economic narrative has been so positive. GDP per head is still <a href="http://cep.lse.ac.uk/pubs/download/ea034_executive_summary.pdf">17% below</a> the long term expected level, and living standards are still down. </p>
<p>Over the past year however things have gone relatively well and people remember recent events more clearly – a triumph for Conservative and coalition strategy. Still, the 2.4% growth rate isn’t much more than the average over the 50 years before the financial crisis – you’d expect strong growth post-crisis but we haven’t seen it. From an economist’s perspective it has been a bad performance.</p>
<p>Labour should have done more to defend its own record though – the high deficit being due to the global financial crisis rather than mismanagement of public finances, for instance. Its strategy of appealing to the base with more regulation, rent control, price control and not reaching out to business was different from Blair’s “middle ground”. A stronger defence of its record probably wouldn’t have won them the election, but it should have reached out more to the middle.</p>
<hr>
<p><strong>Frances Amery, Lecturer in Politics at University of Bath</strong></p>
<p>Everyone is quite shocked at the moment. Somebody somewhere has screwed up, whether it is the pollsters or the exit polls.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://yougov.co.uk/news/2015/05/06/final-call-conservatives-and-labour-tied/">YouGov poll</a> aligns more with our expectations, so it’s interesting to see the BBC’s coverage hasn’t reported on it at all. Too early to give reasoned commentary. Wait and see.</p>
<p>If the <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election-2015-32633099">broadcasters’ exit poll</a> is indeed right then a Conservative minority government is the most likely outcome. Michael Gove and others claiming a “clear victory” would be right as there simply wouldn’t be enough anti-Tory votes to form a rainbow coalition. </p>
<p>It will be interesting to see what happens with a big SNP block though. Another independence referendum is certainly likely as the Conservatives have been so antagonistic towards Scottish voters. This raises constitutional questions about the future of the UK. We may well see some sort of reform on English votes for English laws (EVEL) – though in many cases it’s very hard to determine what is specifically an English issue.</p>
<p>I specialise in women’s issues. If the exit polls are correct, five more years of David Cameron in number 10 would not be a great thing at all for women. Austerity has been worse for women than men, and we’ll see further big welfare cuts. Very damaging for women in the UK.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/41414/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Frances Amery receives funding from the ESRC. This article does not reflect the views of the research councils. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Catherine Happer receives funding from the Avatar Alliance Foundation.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Charles Lees is affiliated with the Labour Party.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Cutts receives funding from the ESRC. This article does not reflect the views of the research councils.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Eric Shaw receives funding from the ESRC and the Carnegie Foundation, and is also a member of the Labour party.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jennifer Thomson receives funding from the ESRC. This article does not reflect the views of the research councils.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>John Van Reenen receives funding from the ESRC. This article does not reflect the views of the research councils.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jonathan Tonge has received funding from the ESRC for the 2010 and 2015 Northern Ireland Election Studies. This article does not reflect the views of the research councils. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Neil Matthews is a post-doctoral research fellow on the ESRC-funded Northern Ireland Assembly Election Study 2016 project. This article does not reflect the views of the research councils.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Stuart Wilks-Heeg receives funding from the electoral commission and is chair of Democratic Audit.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Craig McAngus, Louise Thompson, Michael Saward, Peter Lynch, Rainbow Murray, Roger Awan-Scully, Sophie Whiting, and Victoria Honeyman do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Experts provide a rolling response, live as the results come in for the 2015 general election.Fran Amery, Lecturer in Politics, University of BathCatherine Happer, Research Associate, Glasgow University Media Group, University of GlasgowCharles Lees, Professor of Politics, University of BathCraig McAngus, Research Fellow, University of StirlingDavid Cutts, Reader in Political Science, University of BathEric Shaw, Senior Lecturer in Politics, University of StirlingJennifer Thomson, PhD Candidate, Queen Mary University of LondonJohn Van Reenen, Director, Centre for Economic Performance, London School of Economics and Political ScienceJonathan Tonge, Professor of Politics , University of LiverpoolLouise Thompson, Lecturer in British Politics, University of SurreyMichael Saward, Professor in Politics, University of WarwickNeil Matthews, Research Fellow, School of Politics, International Studies and Philosophy, Queen's University BelfastPeter Lynch, Senior Lecturer, Politics, University of StirlingRainbow Murray, Reader in Politics, Queen Mary University of LondonRoger Awan-Scully, Professor of Political Science, Cardiff UniversitySophie Whiting, Lecturer in Politics, University of LiverpoolStuart Wilks-Heeg, Head of Politics, University of LiverpoolVictoria Honeyman, Lecturer in British Politics, University of LeedsLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/196242013-10-30T19:43:19Z2013-10-30T19:43:19ZAbbott’s belligerence: putting in the boot or kicking himself?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/34083/original/yb8ncwd5-1383106514.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Tony Abbott's interview with the Washington Post has revived Abbott's problem of loose lips - but this time, it's on the international stage.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Matthew Newton</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The words won’t rank with the oratorical flourishes of great leaders but I can’t remember Churchill or Roosevelt describing anybody as “wacko”. When prime minister Tony Abbott uttered this word in an interview with the <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/lally-weymouth-an-interview-with-australia-prime-minister-tony-abbott/2013/10/24/f718e9ea-3cc7-11e3-b6a9-da62c264f40e_story.html">Washington Post</a> on the weekend, it was clear he wished to plant one of his partisan boots in the soft, nether regions of his opponents.</p>
<p>To wit, Abbott answered a question about the National Broadband Network fibre to the premises plan with: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Welcome to the wonderful, wacko world of the former government.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Abbott replied to the question about the former government “doing a lot of things that were bad for the country” with:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I thought it was the most incompetent and untrustworthy government in modern Australian history.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Such language made American political scientist Norman Ornstein <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/tony-abbotts-alp-criticism-could-affect-us-links-20131027-2w9lv.html">“wince”</a>. Ornstein is not a left-wing Abbott-hater from the inner west of Sydney, but an American from the profoundly right-wing American Enterprise Institute and one of the world’s leading foreign policy thinkers.</p>
<p>So, we’re dealing with the old Abbott problem of loose lips but now on the international stage.</p>
<p>The lesson Abbott took from the last three years is that fierce partisan politics works with voters. Certainly, many voters were considerably peeved by the major parties. But when Abbott could get a word in between Labor’s frequent shots in the foot, he was taking those tainted tootsies and shoving them in the voters’ faces.</p>
<p>Any prime minister will want to bash the opposition, especially in the first year when the sins of that previous government are fresh in voter’s minds. But that has to be balanced with a certain decorum associated with the office and with what is publicly and politically acceptable. Ornstein outlined one aspect of that:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>It really does violate a basic principle of diplomacy to drag in your domestic politics when you go abroad. It certainly can’t help in building a bond of any sort with President Obama to rip into a party, government and - at least implicitly - leader, with whom Obama has worked so closely. Perhaps you can chalk it up to a rookie mistake. But it is a pretty big one.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Australia’s leaders don’t want to involve other countries’ leaders in our domestic politics while overseas anyway. Former Queensland premier Joh Bjelke-Petersen did this in 1987: while visiting Japan he attacked the Hawke government.</p>
<p>Political leaders abide by what is known as the London Convention of not talking about domestic politics while on foreign policy business. This was invented by Bob Hawke in the late 1980s when he was getting hassled while overseas by Australian reporters about domestic politics, in particular the problems created by Paul Keating. </p>
<p>When Keating was prime minister, however, he didn’t think much of the convention.</p>
<p>Ironically enough, Abbott reminds me of Keating in the similar partisan aggression which can make black into white and white into black, depending on the occasion. Importantly, Keating’s tongue was not only his greatest weapon, cutting through public opinion with clear messages as well as ridiculing opponents, but also his greatest vulnerability. The verbal aggression gradually alienated enough people over time to rebound upon him in 1996.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/34092/original/wx35ps8z-1383108863.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/34092/original/wx35ps8z-1383108863.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/34092/original/wx35ps8z-1383108863.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/34092/original/wx35ps8z-1383108863.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/34092/original/wx35ps8z-1383108863.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=510&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/34092/original/wx35ps8z-1383108863.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=510&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/34092/original/wx35ps8z-1383108863.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=510&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">As prime minister, Paul Keating’s sharp turn of phrase was a strength as well as a weakness.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Paul Miller</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Admittedly, Abbott’s Washington Post interview was conducted in Australia, so it wasn’t subject to some of the expectations outlined above. </p>
<p>And let’s not forget this is a transition period for him, as it was no more or less than for Julia Gillard and John Howard who weren’t considered foreign affairs “wonks” upon becoming prime minister. And they adjusted.</p>
<p>Yet Abbott has a reputation for loose lips that was only boxed up by the singular focus of opposition and cannot be so easily constrained by executive office. One need only remember his public belligerence in calling asbestos campaigner Bernie Banton’s petition a <a href="http://www.theage.com.au/news/federalelection2007news/abbott-adamant-over-banton-stunt/2007/10/31/1193618926085.html">“stunt”</a> and his <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/national/read-my-lying-lips-abbott-admits-you-cant-believe-everything-he-says-20100517-v9ge.html">admission</a> that:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>…sometimes in the heat of discussion you go a little bit further than you would if it was an absolutely calm, considered, prepared, scripted remark. Which is one of the reasons why the statements that need to be taken absolutely as gospel truth [are] those carefully prepared, scripted remarks.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Abbott learnt the lesson that partisan belligerence works and also that his personal belligerence can get the better of him. But this could also be a style of government that he encourages, particularly when it is on shaky ground but believing that attack is the best form of defence.</p>
<p>So far in the Coalition’s short period in office, we have witnessed: environment minister Greg Hunt <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-10-24/hunt-on-bbc/5043324">get aggressive</a> with a reporter from the BBC World Service; health minister Peter Dutton <a href="http://www.afr.com/p/national/dutton_defends_abbott_wacko_jibe_yvpSLyXSA3T7DtKqhK8GNJ">defend Abbott’s Washington Post interview</a>; and immigration minister Scott Morrison <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-10-21/immigration-minister-scott-morrison-defends-use-of-illegals-term/5035552">aggressively defend</a> his use of the term “illegals”, incorrectly citing it as warranted by the international legal definition and attacking “politically correct language”.</p>
<p>Abbott has played domestic politics while in opposition and sought to smooth over international relations after being elected, as if both sides of politics here were responsible for the damage. Earlier this month he apologised to Malaysian prime minister Najib Razak for dragging his country into the asylum seeker debate, <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/tony-abbott-offers-act-of-contrition-to-malaysia-over-asylum-seeker-criticism-20131008-2v5gl.html">explaining</a> that in Australia, “we play our politics very hard”.</p>
<p>This followed an apology to Indonesian president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono that Australia should have <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/tony-abbott-offers-act-of-contrition-to-malaysia-over-asylum-seeker-criticism-20131008-2v5gl.html">“said less and done more”</a> about asylum seekers passing through Indonesia to get to Australia.</p>
<p>With Abbott’s belligerence goes a lot of hide. But there’s also the very real possibility he will alienate a lot of people over a fairly limited time, as did Keating. After all, belligerence can leave voters with perceptions of ridiculous stubbornness or humiliating backdown.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/19624/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mark Rolfe does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The words won’t rank with the oratorical flourishes of great leaders but I can’t remember Churchill or Roosevelt describing anybody as “wacko”. When prime minister Tony Abbott uttered this word in an interview…Mark Rolfe, Lecturer, School of Social Sciences, UNSW SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/188262013-10-09T02:28:21Z2013-10-09T02:28:21ZLife after the prime ministership: a trek through history<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/32693/original/5sw7wjpb-1381284292.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Julia Gillard has returned to the public spotlight just months after she was deposed as prime minister, and will likely remain front-and-centre in public life.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Dan Himbrechts</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Former prime minister Julia Gillard has returned to the spotlight after maintaining a dignified silence since her removal as Labor leader in June. Since the defeat of the federal Labor government, she has been rapturously received at <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/30/julia-gillard-explains-misogyny-speech">public functions</a> in Melbourne and Sydney, signalling that she is likely to enjoy a high public profile in the years to come. </p>
<p>Political parties are often keen to encourage former leaders to move on to enable a clear run for the party’s new leader. But the tendency of political careers to commence early in life has meant that prime ministers face political defeat in middle age, with decades left to participate in public life.</p>
<p>The most important determinant of a former prime minister’s public profile is the viability of the political project that they represented. Some very successful leaders such as Bob Hawke or Robert Menzies seemed out of step soon after their terms ended, but other less successful leaders were better attuned to the spirit of the age.</p>
<p>Gillard will enjoy a long political afterlife because of her political project. The combination of a cautious social democracy and an appeal to feminism has a significant social base. The struggles she experienced as prime minister resonate with the experience of many women, even those who are <a href="http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2013/10/02/comment-tale-two-julia-gillards">strongly critical</a> of aspects of her record in government. Her market-friendly social democracy is the common sense of much of the global political class.</p>
<p>Paul Keating’s long political afterlife reflects the popularity of his economic and social liberalism among a significant minority of Australian voters. Malcolm Fraser for a time seemed forgotten, but his reinvention as the representative of an older tradition of patrician liberal-conservatism struck a chord with many voters disenchanted with the new Australia that emerged in the 1990s.</p>
<p>In the immediate aftermath of the 2007 federal election, some suggested John Howard would be forgotten, but Tony Abbott’s ascension revealed the continuing appeal of Howard’s brand of populist conservatism to voters. Billy Hughes lost the prime ministership in 1922 but remained in parliament for another 30 years. The “Little Digger”, as he was known, espoused a militarist and economically interventionist form of Australian nationalism that appealed powerfully to many voters.</p>
<p>Gillard is concerned with the vindication of her legacy, but this desire alone is not enough to ensure a successful post-politics career. Hawke’s self-belief and desire for vindication made Kevin Rudd seem modest. Despite this, Hawke struggled for relevance after his prime ministership. </p>
<p>As Hawke’s speechwriter <a href="http://trove.nla.gov.au/version/28255478">Stephen Mills</a> observed, his problem was that his record as an industrial conciliator became largely irrelevant in the 1990s as trade union membership collapsed and the balance of power shifted towards employers. Hawke had only one great moment in the public spotlight after leaving office: in 1995, he appeared before the Industrial Relations Commission as a union advocate in their battle with mining company CRA.</p>
<p>Menzies, like Rudd, fought his way back from the humiliation of rejection by his own party in 1941 to return to the prime ministership in 1949. Yet after he retired in 1966, Menzies soon seemed yesterday’s man in the age of John Gorton and Gough Whitlam. Once ebullient and indefatigable, Menzies became an isolated old man whose <a href="http://www.librarything.com/work/3289971/book/102652227">favoured correspondent</a> was B. A. Santamaria, most notable for his role as the DLP’s standard-bearer.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/32562/original/cwnfcgw8-1381123597.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/32562/original/cwnfcgw8-1381123597.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/32562/original/cwnfcgw8-1381123597.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/32562/original/cwnfcgw8-1381123597.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/32562/original/cwnfcgw8-1381123597.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/32562/original/cwnfcgw8-1381123597.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/32562/original/cwnfcgw8-1381123597.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Former Labor prime minister Paul Keating has maintained a high public profile and often makes appearances in the media.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Lukas Coch</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The political afterlife of former prime ministers is also dependent on the changing extent to which Australian politics has been integrated into transnational networks. </p>
<p>For colonials of talent and breeding, the British Empire once offered a world beyond the dusty country town of Canberra. Stanley Bruce lost the prime ministership at age 46 in 1929 and found his hopes for a return blocked by Joe Lyons. A diplomatic posting took Bruce to London, then came a smooth integration into the British ruling class, a senior position with the United Nations and eventually a peerage. </p>
<p>In 1941, Menzies may have dreamt of an entry to British politics. His rival, Richard Casey, spent the war as a British diplomat and Indian governor and in 1960 was appointed a life peer of the British House of Lords.</p>
<p>Australia’s integration in global networks ebbed with the decline of the British Empire but has been powerfully revived in the current era of globalisation. Today, the European Union provides many European politicians with a career after national politics. Likewise, the transnational community of think tanks and corporate philanthropy has offered an opportunity to Gillard, who has <a href="http://www.brookings.edu/about/media-relations/news-releases/2013/1002-julia-gillard-universal-education">become a fellow</a> with the American Brookings Institute. It is likely that Rudd will eventually follow a similar road.</p>
<p>In the years of the post-war long boom and the difficult decades of restructuring that followed, the Australian prime ministership stood as the summit of a politician’s career. It seems this may no longer be the case.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/18826/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Geoffrey Robinson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Former prime minister Julia Gillard has returned to the spotlight after maintaining a dignified silence since her removal as Labor leader in June. Since the defeat of the federal Labor government, she…Geoffrey Robinson, Senior Lecturer, School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Deakin UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.