Malcolm Turnbull to blame for Wentworth disaster, writes Andrew Bolt
ACTS of sheer bastardry from former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull are to blame for the Liberal Party’s disastrous result in Wentworth, writes Andrew Bolt.
Andrew Bolt
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SURELY the Wentworth disaster will force the Liberals to draw a line. Right through Malcolm Turnbull’s name.
The former prime minister must be damned as a traitor and unwelcome at any Liberal function after what he’s done to them.
Check Turnbull’s record.
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He’s a me-first careerist who first asked to join Labor, before joining the Liberals.
He’s since undermined a Liberal prime minister, Tony Abbott, and taken his job.
He then lost 14 seats at the last election, five by-elections last July, and every poll in nearly two years.
He did that by dragging the Liberals from their conservative roots, and once MPs belatedly replaced him two months ago, after revolting against his costly global warming schemes, Turnbull immediately quit parliament.
He could have just delayed resigning until the general election in a few months’ time. He could have saved the Liberals what they had to face on Saturday — an unnecessary and damaging by-election in his seat of Wentworth that they could not afford to lose, having just a one-seat majority.
What an act of bastardry.
But Turnbull didn’t stop there. He then crippled the Liberals’ bid to defend his seat.
He refused pleas from Prime Minister Scott Morrison and other ministers to help the Liberal candidate, Dave Sharma, with even a single tweet.
In fact, the only time he tweeted about Wentworth was to like a post by a campaign worker for Sharma’s main opponent, Kerryn Phelps.
And while his son campaigned against the Liberals, Turnbull said not one word in defence of the party he’d led twice.
His allies also destabilised Morrison for weeks with trumped-up claims of Liberal MPs bullying women.
Sheer bastardry.
I don’t say all this just to pay out on a man I said from day one of his leadership would wreck the Liberals, and treat them only as a ladder for his ambition.
There is a wider point: this is what the Liberals get when they forget their roots and choose a man of the Left to run a party of the Right.
That was always going to end badly, and now the Liberals are left with an ex-prime minister who will be their enemy for the rest of his days.
Lesson to the Liberals: don’t lose touch with your values. Don’t just go with the flow. Hear that, Scott Morrison?
Stand true or fall apart.
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