More Roman than the Romans

Just as the Labor party under Hawke and Keating underwent a major renovation, the Liberal party under Howard has entered a new era. Perhaps it should be called the post-Liberal party, as it has abandoned the true liberal constituency in favour of a conservative brand of populism. The only thing left of its original core principles is a concern for small business and an abiding hatred of the unions, the last vestige of socialism. Compared to the socialist dinosaurs of 1949, today's unions are as dangerous to democracy as the somewhat forlorn ibis that frequent Hyde Park.

Seeing the dire trends in a whole list of true liberal seats (North Sydney and Wentworth in Sydney, Kooyong, Goldstein and Higgins in Melbourne, Ryan in Brisbane), it became obvious that Howard had to do something to reconcile his traditional base with his new supporters. Of course - propose a referendum on reconciliation using that old tool, the preamble. That ought to bring those bridge-walking trendies back to the fold.

This spectacle reminded me of one of the more peculiar episodes from history. Goths are now known as nocturnal young people with a penchant for the colour black and a general aversion to sunny conversation. However, historically, a merry band of them landed in Italy and promptly routed the ailing Roman forces, depriving them of their mainland. They set up residence in the newly vacated capital of Ravenna, adopted Latin language, social structures and the western Arian Christian religion. They looked just the same as traditional Romans in their dress and conduct.

Over in the East, the Emperor Justinian (he of the law codes), rather fancied himself as a reconquistador. He thus launched his great fleet across from Constantinople and sought to retake the ancestral fatherland. The arriving fleet, however, was not liberating Rome from the infidels. For the Eastern Roman forces spoke Greek, followed the Orthodox religious doctrine and bowed down to their master.

Howard is not reconnecting to the true liberals, for they no longer speak his language. More to the point, he doesn't speak theirs. His natural impulse is to be skeptical on matters of human rights, to vent suspicion of foreigners and be further skeptical of suggestions that his accustomed way of thinking on matters such as treatment of indigenous people and climate change may be wrong. He is now at home more with the populists.

Rudd has assumed the Liberals' traditional mantle, evoking the (traditional enemy of Labor) Menzies in establishing Howard as the extremist, the alien force to the conservative tradition.

We now have the unedifying spectacle of Howard trying to desperately defend his own core constituencies who provide him with the organisational firepower to maintain the Liberal party. The problem Howard has is that even though his 'Greek-speaking' marginal seat dwellers are his new home, they want to turf him out because of the uncertainty caused by workchoices and the dire state of the health, aged care and child care sectors.

If the marginal seat strategy works, Howard survives. If it doesn't, the whole party gets caught in a pincer movement from the true liberals and the defecting battlers.