The leadership election is on!

My apologies for not blogging for a while but several other matters have consumed my time lately. But news caught my eye today of the imminent leadership election. After just a year in post, during which confidence in him has steadily eroded and many have looked to other leading figures who in the past declined to run for the leadership, he's finally taken the plunge to face his critics head on and called a leadership election to settle the matter.

So is Brendan Nelson going to keep his job? Will Peter Costello finally actually stand for the leadership after a record of not doing so that dwarfs David Miliband's? Or will it be Malcolm Turnbull?

What, you thought I was talking about another party's leadership problems? You seriously expected Gordon Brown to find his bottle? Or David Miliband to find a nomination form?!

For more details about the Liberal Party of Australia leadership election, 2008, see ABC News: Nelson calls leadership spill

...or Costelliband?

A further thought about men who decline to run for their party's leadership more than once has reminded me of this clip on YouTube of the former Australian Prime Minister Paul Keating berating Peter Costello over the latter's failure to stand for the Liberal Party leadership both times he had the chance:

"A low altitude flier." With a cancelled trip abroad that doesn't sound so distant does it?

P.S. I've got not idea who our answer to Paul Keating is though:

Anyone care to suggest a counterpart?

Does the layout of a parliamentary chamber make any difference?

All too often we hear the suggestion made that the House of Commons should be redesigned so as to be semi-circular, the reasoning being that this might make debate in the chamber more "constructive".

Are they thinking of something like this, as shown at the start of the Wikipedia article on Parliament:

This is the Australian House of Representatives. Now according to the theory, a more rounded chamber should lead to a calmer style of parliamentary politics shouldn't it?

So here's an excerpt from a session:

I can't imagine Alistair Darling ever having the problems at the dispatch box that Peter Costello is having here! Somehow I don't think the shape of the chamber has much effect...