Crikey always welcomes reader feedback. And we’ve received plenty today over our wrap of the High Court decision on the Malaysian deal, with many suggestions we were falling into the usual media trap of engaging in pointless speculation over Julia Gillard’s leadership.

There’s no doubt all the media — all of us — instinctively like leadership stories. We’re addicted to them, partly because they’re so easy to cover — they’re not about complex policy issues, they don’t require sophisticated analysis, they don’t demand hours of research in order to say something interesting or meaningful. They’re just about who’s winning and who’s losing, and that’s what the media covers best, as many critics never cease to remind us.

But there is no doubt the High Court decision has put a question mark over Gillard’s tenure in a way that nothing previously has — not even her decision on a carbon price. As Bernard Keane argued yesterday in Crikey, it was the prime minister herself who made asylum seekers a key issue of her leadership, and she must now be judged on that.

And then there’s the reality, too, that talk within Labor is now of what a post-Gillard scenario looks like, with names like Stephen Smith in circulation.

That’s not to say there will be any immediate threat to Gillard. She could yet pull off an improbable comeback in the minds of voters. There is a long way to go until the next election and a conviction within Labor that, having in effect wasted the talents of Gillard by rushing her ill-prepared into the job last year, Caucus needs to think long and hard before repeating the dose and risking another of its limited stock of major talents.

But the problem is there for the prime minister, a problem that wasn’t there before Wednesday afternoon, and it’s one that won’t go away any time soon. That’s what Crikey will continue to cover.

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