Tony Abbott: the Golden Arsehat winner for 2010’s most appalling person

It’s pretty disheartening that Tony Abbott — the man who could be just one slippery Port Macquarie step away from being Prime Minister — is the most appalling person of 2010. But that’s politics in the new paradigm for you. Looking from the outside, Abbott didn’t have such a bad year. He took the Coalition from a pretty dire position to within a whiff of snatching victory and he put enough pressure on a flagging first-term government that a Prime Minister was dumped by his own party — just two months out from an election.

But then there’s the other side of big Tone. In Opposition, the Speedo-wearing, gospel truth-spouting, s-x-before-marriage-opposing ironman seemed intent on destroying policy purely for the sake of it. And, in an election campaign dominated by small-target strategy policies and focus group-driven slogans, he displayed such a dazzling array of stunts the electorate knew more of what he stood against than what he stood for. In the 2010 race for bottom — which featured a decent-sized field it must be said — Tony Abbott was first.