Andrew Bolt: Liberals have lost the will to live

The Morrison government’s poll numbers are terrible, the PM looks rattled and the Liberals have given up the fight. So who is still trying to win this election?

Call the election already. I can’t watch this suffering much longer – a government that’s lost the will to live.

Sadder than the Morrison government’s poll numbers – terrible – is that it’s dying on its knees. No fight. No pride.

On Wednesday, I watched one Liberal MP, Celia Hammond, even protest at being called a conservative, as if the reporter had insulted her.

No, no, she insisted, she decided each issue as they came, and was right on board the global warming scare.

Oh dear. Yet another Liberal who doesn’t dare admit to conservative principles, and steals instead the policies of the Left. Add also MP Dave Sharma, whose campaign material is in the teal colours of his climate-extremist opponent, and – like other Liberals – won’t run the word “Liberal” on his flyers.

The Liberals have given up the fight. Picture: Alex Treacy

Sigh. Name me just, say, three Liberals who loudly argue for Liberal principles. Defence Minister Peter Dutton, yes … And?

Instead, we hear far more Liberals – past MPs and present – shriek that the Prime Minister is a horrible man.

There’s Senator Concetta Fierravanti-Wells, furious at being dumped and now raging that Morrison “lacks a moral compass”.

There’s NSW Liberal MP Catherine Cusack, who agrees Morrison is a bully and preaches global warming in the far-Left Guardian Australia.

There’s former Left-wing Liberals Julia Banks and Malcolm Turnbull, stab stab stabbing, and campaigning now on – you guessed it – global warming.

Good god, who needs Labor when the Liberals are their own worst opposition? In the seat of Reid, two heads of a Liberal women’s branch refuse even to help MP Fiona Martin, saying they’re friends with her opponent.

Even the Australian Christian Lobby is now campaigning against the Left-wing Liberal MPs who, typically, sabotaged Morrison’s plan to protect religious freedom, voting with Labor. The ACL says it doesn’t care now if the Liberals lose, as long as the survivors learn a lesson.

Peter Dutton is one of the few who loudly argue for Liberal principles. Picture: Gary Ramage

The big lesson is that the Liberals are paying the price of not standing for much, and picking too many MPs who’d seem just as happy with Labor – and would rat out the Liberals if their ambitions were thwarted.

So who is still trying to win this election? There’s Morrison, looking rattled. And there’s Dutton and Treasurer Josh Frydenberg, both also trying to prove they should be the next Liberal leader.

Apart from them? Who?

That’s how a Labor opposition with few policies, little talent and a dangerous fixation with global warming sneaks into government. Because the Liberals just gave up the fight.