A no brainer or no brains? I notice that Steve Donohue, general manager of buying for the Woolworths Liquor Group, thinks selling the new release of wines called Back In Black Shiraz, Highway To Hell Cabernet Sauvignon and You Shook Me All Night Long Moscato thinks is  a “no-brainer”. He describes the AC-DC range being released to coincide with a revival tour by the band as being “a world-wide phenomena and a first in the marketplace.”

A fitting wine promoter?

In keeping with the slogan that WOOLWORTHS SUPPORTS THE RESPONSIBLE SERVICE OF ALCOHOL, perhaps Mr Donohue will ask the producers to add a Bon Scott label drawing attention to the coroner’s finding that the original lead singer for the band died of “acute alcohol poisoning” and “death by misadventure” caused by pulmonary expiration of vomit after a night drinking in a London club called the Music Machine.

The weak link. It is not cheap clinging to minority government and nor are unsuccessful defamation actions. Just ask the NSW Branch of the Labor Party which has had to pick up at least part of the tab for federal MP Craig Thomson’s aborted effort to sue the Fairfax press for disclosing that his former union credit card had been used in a house of ill repute.

Sussex St confirmed yesterday, reports the Daily Telegraph this morning, that  NSW Labor headquarters paid “some” of his legal bills, which included settling some of Fairfax’s costs.

A senior Labor source confirmed the payment and said: “It’s not uncommon for political parties to help members with legal bills from time to time. He had a lot of legal bills. He needed help paying them. He’s an MP on $120,000-$130,000 who owed tens of thousands.”

I must say I’ve not heard of such generosity before, especially for someone who is causing great embarrassment of the party. But then my memory does not go back far enough to recall the last time the Labor Government was clinging to office in Canberra by one vote.

Different treatment of the polls. A little smidgin of an upturn in a couple of opinion polls and there are commentators speculating whether Australian Labor is on the comeback trail. Perhaps it is, perhaps it’s not or perhaps it has never been as far behind as the pollsters would have us believe.

Personally I prefer the far more relaxed and sceptical view that the British press takes to the relevance of measuring voting intentions well out from an election. Over there the polls showing the Conservative Government would get an absolute hiding are largely ignored.

Conservatives – election 36.1%; now 36.0%
Labour – election 29.0%; now 43.0%
Lib Dems – election 23.0%; now 9%
Others – election 11.9%; now 11.0%

On results like these from YouGov for the Murdoch press in London, Labour would be back in office with a bigger majority than before it lost office to the Conservative and Liberal Democrat coalition yet there is rarely a mention of the supposed turn around of public opinion.