Tough times. How can you tell that these have been the government’s toughest times for ages? Well, Alexander Downer has been overheard whinging loudly about the ABC’s use of left wing commentator…Michelle Grattan. That’s just plain sad.

Broad church. NSW Liberal ratbag Michael Darby was recently suspended from the party for assisting the Christian Democrats at the recent NSW election. How must he be greeting the news that Federal Health Minister Tony Abbott and shadow state attorney general Greg Smith will be addressing the CDP conference next month?

Fat hack loses preselection. The weekend preselection for the Liberal electorate of Cook proves once again that the NSW wets couldn’t stack salad on a hamburger. But Bruce Baird’s failure to secure the seat for his preferred candidate, former Tourism Australia boss and Liberal apparatchik Scott Morrison, raises questions about their political nous, too. Morrison looked as much the hack as any secretary of the Plumbers and Gasfitters union that was forced into a safe seat by the bruvvers. Baird tried to short-circuit the democratic process and hand Morrison the seat. Creating short-circuits, however, can give you a shock. Didn’t Baird and Morrison know that?

What do they know that we don’t know? Was that electoral booth wrapping being unloaded outside the Victorian Liberal Party HQ on Exhibition Street at the end of last week? What do they know that we don’t know?