10-Year Apathy

If you think this is about Labour, you'd be half right - except it's about the Labor Party in Australia winning yesterday's general election.

NB: It's not a typo - they lost the 'u' from Labor about 20 years ago, even though labour [to toil] is still spelt with a 'u' - go figure.

Michael Howard, the ex-PM and leader of the Liberal i.e. Conservative Party (more confusion) lost in such a landslide that it looks like he won't even keep his own seat.

Australia must be in a real economic pickle for something like that to happen. Or maybe there's a Spring of Discontent going on. If not, then millions thousands must be out on the streets protesting against the war.

Or not it seems. Yes, there's a bit of inflation. Yes, house prices are rising rapidly. Yes, people don't like some new labour laws but Michael Howard made two mistakes in a country that's generally doing not too bad at all:

1) He announced that he wouldn't run again after the next election (didn't he learn anything from Tony?)
2) Nobody liked his Treasurer, Peter Costello, who would have succeeded him (see note above)

Apparently, Howard suffered a landslide defeat because the electorate was just bored of him.

We've had Brown for less than 6 months and we're already bored with him.