After the bloodletting, an armistice is vital

Never in my life have I had so many phone chats shot through with such dark melancholy.

Conversations even with Liberals who most want a change are filled with sadness. They know their party is a bitter, divided mess, almost certainly heading for catastrophic defeat at the election.

They understand the next few months are critical. They could be casting themselves, no matter who is the leader, into an unelectability that could last a very long time.

Malcolm Turnbull is probably right that he should leave parliament if he loses the prime ministership. That is not a personal criticism of Turnbull or his period in office, but it seems now that only by leaving altogether can deposed leaders ensure they are not a continuing source of instability.

For all that, Turnbull has no real complaint about the process, given what he did to Tony Abbott.

But that is a dismal, sterile ­reflection.

And it contains the germ, perhaps, of two shoots of wisdom.

First, the party needs to change the way it elects leaders. Given the hypersonic speed of the news cycle and the bias in all popular culture now against stability, there is a paradoxical need for a more deliberate, slower leadership process. Almost no parliamentary party in the world any longer leaves leadership to a simple vote of MPs.

You shouldn’t make it too populist, either. Labor’s alternative is pretty good: an electoral college equally weighted between MPs and grassroots financial party members who have been so for a qualifying period.

This is a mechanism of conservative wisdom. It militates against the midnight assassination. It might mean it’s harder to replace an unsatisfactory leader but all leaders would have a better chance of performing if they didn’t face their mortality any time the partyroom was in a bad mood.

Second, all of the Liberals need to reflect deeply on how they conduct themselves. Don’t say things that make it impossible for ­colleagues to work together in the future.

Most important of all, once any leadership contest is decided, all hostilities should cease, like the end of a boxing match.

The Abbott forces believe they were undermined from day one by the Turnbull forces. They never forgave the Turnbull forces for this.

The Turnbull forces believe they were undermined from day one by the Abbott forces.

Both sides have at times been bitterly determined that the bad behaviour of their enemies should not be rewarded.

This is exactly how the rival Labor factions felt about each other in the bitter Rudd/Gillard years.

It is a wretched, worthless basis for ongoing political activism.

None of these politicians is hired by the Australian people to pursue personal vendettas.

No matter how it ends today, anyone who remains in parliament must declare, and believe, that they have no enemies on their own side, and be willing to work with all their colleagues.

That such elementary common sense is so elusive is a withering comment on the parliament today.