Gerard Henderson, and the class in which the smug inner city elites .

It was but last January that Gerard Henderson was explaining why John Howard was in choice company when it came to the subject of royalty and republics, as he brooded about:. the luvvies' (then) hero, Justice Michael Kirby. When it comes to the royals and all that, Kirby is every bit as often a monarchist as John Howard.

Yes, it was the years of the luvvies.

It was likewise the month that Henderson outed Obama:

The Chairman was unambiguous in declaring last week: "We are at war. We are at war against al-Qaeda _ and we will do whatsoever it takes to kill them." He too spoke about al-Qaeda's "murder of fellow Muslims". Sounds a bit like George Bush, or possibly even Dick Cheney.

Except of course he's a Kenyan Muslim.

But that didn't stop our prattling Polonius from finding former chairman Rudd just like John Howard in the subject of terrorism . only to direct a wrong course in congress to India, where Henderson used street violence in Melbourne to berate Rudd for not selling uranium to India. What's the link, you ask? Well none really, except it allowed Henderson to encourage the notion that Australia was practising a variety of apartheid:

Some prominent Indians have vented their displeasure in public. Shashi Tharoor, the pastor of land in the international affairs department, knows Australia well. During a call to Australia in 2008, before he took up his present position, he accused Rudd Labor of practising a case of apartheid. He complained "there isn't a rational ground for the Australian position because Australia does sell uranium to nuclear-weapon-producing states, including China".

Still unsure of the connection between a non-racist Australia, in Henderson's mind, given to street violence against Indians, and international apartheid practiser? Never mind ...

February: Gerard Henderson discovers a favorite theme for the year:

The interests of the remaining are easy identifiable. They invariably involve anything but what were formerly referred to as "sugar and butter" issues. The inner-city radical middle class has moved beyond bread and butter - and even focaccia and caviar - to such issues as external and internal security, nuclear force and the environment.

Oh how he and The Australian could rant and track at the well-off professionals who know and turn in the interior city and enjoy tenured employment, most notably at the Sydney Institute. At the same time, Henderson feared for small business:

The Prime Minister and his colleagues are busy bagging the opposition finance spokesman, Barnaby Joyce. They should heed to Peter Walsh, the successful finance minister in the Hawke government, who warned last week the MUA's recent industrial victory could go to a wages breakout of a variety that devastated Gough Whitlam's Labor politics in 1974.

Still wondering when the wages breakout will waste the Gillard government? What's the chance it'll be Peter Walsh, Gary Punch, Michael Costa, Mark Latham and Graham Richardson that will the ones to waste it?

March: In March Henderson was devastated to be overlooked by the ABC:

After nearly 4 days as managing director, Scott has yet not constitute one conservative or right-of-centre personality to submit any of the ABC's most influential programs.

If only they'd given him a gig, so he could have announced to the earth the truth about Tony Abbott:

It's unclear how the class will turn out. But Rudd's decision to delete an important trip to the US indicates he acknowledges Abbott really does give some people skills.

Also in March Henderson discovered a terror that was nearly a check for dangerous inner suburban radicals:

No community is responsible for individuals within it. But it is disturbing that the reply from Muslim spokesmen in the Elomar case has been to refuse or run down the matter.

Making, of feed the Muslim community responsible for the terrorist individuals within it.

April: This was the month when Henderson discovered that kick the Bill Henson can was appropriate, and Malcolm Turnbull revealed himself as a political hero . to David Marr:

In a sense, Turnbull emerged as the political champion of Marr's book. That might have won him back in Wentworth. But Rudd's condemnation would have had majority living in suburban and regional Australia where most marginal seats are. There is no cause to question Rudd's sincerity on this issue. It's only that his stand also made political sense.

Dammit, it also turns out that Joe Hockey is the wrong form of hero:

Once again, Hockey's position may have appeal on the lower north shore. Yet it is unbelievable to get support in the outer suburbs and regional centres. The like is straight of Hockey's criticism of the attack by the Communication Minister, Stephen Conroy, to end child pornography on the internet.

Damn those lower north shore types. For a true hero, we need Barnaby Joyce:

The National Party is never probably to again command the Coalition. However, there should be way for Joyce's economic and social philosophy and his substance is probably to get some appeal to regional and rural Australia. Hence the Nationals' advertising campaign some six months out from the election.

May: In this month, it was the damned inner city types who came second to repair the world, in the figure of Peter Carey, Catherine Deveny, Jill Singer, Judith Brett, and John Faine:

From New York to Sydney and on to Melbourne, many an inner-city intellectual is good of disdain for their fellow men and women. It's only that not many 'fess up to what they actually think.

Gerard's solution? Well of form he has a hearty contempt for inner city intellectuals, and is ever set to 'fess up what he actually thinks.

Let the youth read Dan Brown and find the Catholic plot to find the world . and beware blondes ...

The opinion polls suggest Barry O'Farrell is head for a comfortable victory. However, the sassy Kristina Keneally is popular.

Sassy! Oh yes, how we chuckled over that sassy sally.

Then Henderson decided to tap former Chairman Rudd on the shoulder:

Rudd is often more responsible than Whitlam.

From that moment former Chairman Rudd was doomed.

It seems Kevin Rudd has become a significant disappointment to many members of the parliamentary press gallery. Quite a few environmentally conscious journalists agreed with the Prime Minister that human-induced climate change was the greatest moral challenge of our time - and they expected him to put Australia in the breast line of those nations wanting to guide action to save the planet.

Strange. So it was the press gallery that did Rudd down, and not his want of kinship with the outer suburbs?

If Gillard prevails, this will be the most important reform of Rudd's inaugural term.

Well you get to give it to Gerard, he called it in one.

June: A new variation on the evils besetting us:

The Greens are basically the company of the affluent inner-city professional class, many of whom work in the public sector or who enjoy generous taxpayer-subsidised superannuation.

.... The Greens might win House of Representative seats and just might give a purpose to work in a hung parliament. But it is unlikely Bob Brown and his colleagues will be anything other than influential senators.

July: dammit, more of the same:

... middle-class radicals who see the inner-city greens . inner-city left-wing political activists, left-wing socialist-style party . lifelong members of the pro-Stalinist Socialist party .ex-communists and socialists trying to make over the inner-city branches of the Greens . and middle class radicalism

Talk around a one note prattling Polonius.

The well educated and well off will invariably obtain jobs. Which explains why, in parts of inner Sydney and inner Melbourne, there is what used to be called over-employment. But it is different in some outer-suburban and regional areas, where increasingly the deep and tertiary educated get jobs while the wretched and less educated line up for Centrelink payments.

Yes, there's over-employment at the Sydney Institute which is why we want to get back Work Choices so more people can get fat and rewarding jobs preparing hamburgers ...

Also in July Henderson bravely tackled the issue of New Zealand cowardice when it came to Afghanistan:

If the new Netherlands government takes any note of Key's assessment, it is unbelievable to recommit forces to Afghanistan. His comments are at best indiscreet. If New zealand does not want to force its burden in Nato and the Western Alliance, that's New Zealand's business. But Key does not want to cut his country's isolationist tendency by criticising a dedication in which his land has played merely a scant role.Damn you, fickle cowardly Kiwis, damn you and your white feather inner suburban isolationist ways. Just think of Hamid Karzai as uncle Joe:Certainly there are concerns about corruption in the authorities in Kabul led by Hamid Karzai. But the Karzai government is the only viable administration that Afghanistan has right now. There are many instances where the Allies have supported flawed governments during times of conflict - most notably Joseph Stalin's communist dictatorship in Moscow when the precedence was to kill Adolf Hitler and Nazism.

Who could suppose a better geo-political metaphor to explicate the quagmire?

August: there was a month, with the headmaster flaying his pupils. Allow me to summarise:

There's a "serial of errors", "a bit of self-inflicted errors", "the dumbest political strategy ever", "incompetent behaviour", a loser to "act professionally", a wasting of "time and money", "errors on the National Party side", and a demand for "both the Liberals and Nationals" to prove "their acts of stupidity and self-indulgence" which cost a "clear, albeit narrow, victory."

But how could it have happened? Well it wasn't the doing of women. After all, we acknowledge that they were rooting for Tony in Rooty Hill when not rooting for conservative views of the world:

Then there was Paul Murphy, a small businessman from Illawong. Responding to claims that Abbott worried feminists, Murphy wrote to the Herald about the new women he has employed for more than two decades. He said they were mainly "concerned with conceiving, managing work and kids and running households". Murphy wrote that most of the women in the outer suburbs of his acquaintance "have strong circles of friends and generally hold 'old-fashioned views' ".

Naturally our prattling Polonius was at one with this:

The left-wing community action group Get Up! ran advertisements against Abbott advising women not to balloting for the Coalition. Millions of women rejected this advice. And millions of men and women failed to reply to warnings from the likes of Professor Robert Manne and the author Paul Collins that Abbott did not deserve support because he is a conservative Catholic. This used to be called sectarianism.

Yes, when we all recognize that Gillard didn't deserve support because she's an atheist with a hairdresser boyfriend . but this used to be called sensible conservative Catholic thinking ...

Still, the key outcome of the decade, of the millenia continued to be clear:

The opinion that Abbott is unelectable reflects the mentality of the secular inner-city intelligentsia and finds expression among some journalists.

... the show suggests Abbott has a certain appeal among lower-socio-economic groups in the outer suburbs and regional centres where living is quite hard and long-term and youth unemployment disturbingly high. Outside the interior city, Abbott's social conservatism is not a cause for sneering - since most Australians are conservatively inclined.

Oh dear. Please forgive them lord, for they live not what they did, and somehow lo and behold a Labor Green alliance came into being ...

September: By now the bee in the hood was abuzz with weekly monotony:

Turnbull, on a full day, is a positive for the opposition. Yet his policies on climate change - and his socially progressive beliefs documented in Annabel Crabb's essay Stop At Nothing - are far from popular in the outer suburbs and regional areas where most marginal seats are located.

... Turnbull may get a team player. Or he may become yet another Liberal who spends much time criticising the company he once led - in the custom of the later John Gorton, Malcolm Fraser and John Hewson. They are the form of Liberals whom Tim Costello loves.

Oh no, anybody, anything, anyone other than Tim Costello. Why that's as bad as the ABC (and please tell, why isn't Gerard Henderson fronting his own show yet?)

This follows a parliamentary term in which the policies and practices of Toil and the Coalition were held to account, while the Greens leader Bob Brown got by with soft questions from interviewers, especially on the ABC.

Yes Gerard for the hard questions!

October: It was the same mob refusing to ask the difficult questions this month too:

During his incarceration, Hicks had many vocal supporters among left-wing professionals. They have been quiet following the issue of his memoirs and his apparent refusal to do as he promised and full account for his terrorist training and his kinship with al-Qaeda.Yep, it's once again with the 'left-wing professionals'. Or should that be the master left wing? Or could that be Henderson confusing the subject of captivity with a condoning of Hicks' folly?

But then, in the common way, it was deja vu all over again:

It was the classic disconnect between the inner-city, well-educated professional with a good job and guaranteed superannuation and the less-educated small business operator or employee in the regional centres or outer suburbs.

... The growing disparity in Australia is not so often between productive and miserable but between the well-educated in secure employment and the less educated in small business and uncertain employment or on pensions. Any exchange which does not return this section into account is lost for political failure.

Dammit, the good employment of the Sydney Institute strikes again. Or is fund raising this class a little tougher?

The disconnect between those who backed the guide's thesis and those who might have its recommendations was dramatic. The supporters were public servants along with the likes of Professor Richard Kingsford - academics who exercise at publicly funded universities. Support was too evident among journalists who have rarely worked outside the public broadcasters or big media companies.

Unlike Henderson of course who has worked in a broad array of fields, from the world service done to running for Liberal politicians to scribbling for that very small media company Fairfax, when not ensconced in the abdomen of a private institute located in the spirit of Sydney.

Did we note that one trick pony routine?

If the divide prevails, the following election will likely be distinct in the suburbs of Sydney and Melbourne, in the seats now held by Oakeshott and Windsor in northern NSW, on the NSW central coast and in northern Tasmania. This is where there is probably to be a greater concern about rising power bills than the Greens' climate change agenda, which is popular among the party's radical middle-class base of inner-city professionals, academics, public servants and superannuants.

Uh huh, that was the prattling Polonius getting agitated about the ALP Green alliance, haunted as common in a mind numbing, repetition by rote way, by the endless rattling chains of the radical inner city elite.

November: Happily the month saw a variety of tack - a risk to shew that World War 1 was a good war, and a tremendous romp, and a fortune for Australians to run out from fiendish left wing historians and into the welcoming arms of Gerard Henderson, so that they might hold a manly bosom. It was likewise the clock to contemplate and think back on what power have happened if ASIO hadn't caught the Petrovs:

And it (ASIO) kept a check on communists, who, as Eric Aarons acknowledged in his 1993 book What's Left?, would have "executed people" if they had come to power.

So that's what happens when a paranoid accepts the thoughts of the delusional ....

December: and so we do to the finest month of all, and a set of stunning predictions:

It is too early to take even a vague prediction. But Abbott has a fair prospect of taking the following election. He needs to amend the Coalition's vote in suburban Melbourne, western Sydney and on the NSW central coast. The Alliance has a fortune of taking the seats held by Oakeshott and Windsor. And it may be capable to do still better in Queensland and make inroads in northern Tasmania.As the Victorian election demonstrated, the Greens are not as influential as many of their supporters imply.

What word from the front Master Polonius?

Well it seems that the devilish inner suburban elites are really a mirage, an illusion, a delusion, and they receive no sustenance at all, and victory will be there for the taking ...

But meanwhile, how near a little paranoia on behalf of the Catholic church? Sure thing:

As Francis Fukuyama pointed out in a speech in Sydney in 2008, the huge increases in world population are taking office in sub-Saharan Africa where the Pope has little influence. If Adams was truly concerned about the motive for condom advocacy as a kind of birth control, he would make his campaign to the Islamic nations - or, indeed, to Islamic settlements within Western societies. It's just that it is easier to ridicule Christians in the West than Muslims anywhere.

Actually it's easier to ridicule Gerard Henderson, the prattling Polonius who gives desiccated coconut a full name. Just add water, and you end up with a form of creamy predictability, but whatever you do, don't put the bat in coffee, or you might end up contribution of an inner suburban elite . like Henderson ...

But that you make it. Just a short skim milk survey of the thoughts of Comrade Gerard.

Oh and the cause for this little trip down Gerard Henderson memory lane? Well this week in Year's dish was hyperbole, with a style of exaggeration, Henderson berates 2010 and asks whether this is the class in which exaggeration and pretended prophecy reached a nadir ...

He suggests you be the judge. And I guess we can say that the ayes have it, which is to say, the inner suburban elitist conspiracy to kill all right thinking well meaning outer suburban and country folk, including of flow the upstanding members of the Sydney Institute who march shoulder to shoulder with them.

After all, no damage done celebrating World War One (so long ago), savaging the kiwis (so preening as they get with their haka) or saving Afghanistan in practically the like way as we helped out Joe Stalin ...