Fraser leaves The Liberals.

Cartoon: Probably by Pickering.

The Liberals have lately been buoyed by what has been described as a rise in the polls, although it seems to have occurred because of the total ineptitude of the Labor Party combined with the overbearing incompetence of Kevin Rudd, rather than any success of their own. In further good news for them they have managed to come out level with Labor in later ones despite a couple of incredible gaffes by Abbott.

These include his televised admission that voters should not believe every pledge he makes unless it is written down as the "gospel truth", saying that "in the heat of discussion" he sometimes goes further with a promise than he should.

In another promising development this week Malcolm Fraser a former Prime Minister from back in the 70s resigned from the party after being a chronic embarrassment to them ever since 1975 when he was elected.

Fraser was an avowed centralist with a decidedly small l liberal progressive agenda, who only avoided being a complete disaster because of a few competent people within the party, and his own inertia, which prevented him from doing anything substantive. Since leaving parliament he has set himself up as a sort of conscience of the party, criticizing anyone who did better than he did.

My personal recollection of him is that after he defeated the Whitlam government in 75 a spirit of optimism pervaded the nation. He was in a position to do pretty much anything he wanted and had a huge majority to do it with. After the dust settled and nothing happened the country settled into an ongoing quagmire of disillusionment.

Fraser was an arrogant prick and an incompetent one.