YouTube minder

IF you've ever been to a modern politician's press conference, you'll know that none are capable of entering a room alone anymore.

IF you've ever been to a modern politician's press conference, you'll know that none are capable of entering a room alone anymore.

No, they have to come with aides and minders and security guys, and one bloke whose job it is to make swirly little finger signals near his own ear, so the boss knows when to wind up, and to run that same finger across their own neck when it's time to cut, cut, cut, because the boss has either said too much, or is making a complete hash of it. This person normally stands at the back of the room, and isn't often caught on camera, but last week one of Andrew Robb's minders, Nicholas Troja, was caught making all those signals and more. Indeed, Troja was shown on Channel Nine doing the ear wind, and the neck slash and the time-out (flat palm on upright fingers of other hand) and when all that failed to shut Robb up, rocking his whole body back and forward, like John Cleese trying to strangle Manuel, behind the back of guests in Fawlty Towers. Footage of the incident has made its way to YouTube, and Labor's Lindsay Tanner was yesterday urging people to log on because, "it's really worth a look" prompting Robb to say that Labor was clearly going to run "one of the grubbiest and personally vicious [election] campaigns in history . . . attacking staff . . . naming them . . . urging the population to go to YouTube. It's pathetic. It's grubby." It is also very funny. Go and have a look.

Fraser's little secret

AS you may have read yesterday, former Liberal prime minister Malcolm Fraser has quit the Liberal Party. He did it last December. Only now is it being reported. Did nobody know? Au contraire, Fraser's biographer, Margaret Simons knew. She's known for ages but, according to a post on her blog yesterday, she was sworn to secrecy. Fraser told her that he didn't want to make a big song and dance about it. Simons told him, last February, that it would surely come out, because they were on a publicity tour for the book they penned together, and he was scheduled to address the National Press Club and he was being interviewed by "the best political journalists in the country". Fraser told Simons that if he was asked outright - "Are you still a member of the Liberal Party?" - he wouldn't lie and deny it, and then Simons would be able to publish the news. Now, at this point, we definitely would have said: "So, Mr Fraser, are you still a member of the Liberal Party?" but Simons kept schtum, and so the AFR's Laura Tingle got the story instead.

Dopes in the Senate

YET another memo about smoking in the fire escapes has gone out at Canberra's Parliament House, reminding "senators, members and other building occupants" that the foul habit has been banned on commonwealth property since 1991, at least, so why are people still doing it? The memo was welcomed by many, including our spy, who tells us the real problem isn't cigarette butts but "butts without filters, slimmer than cigarettes, self-rolled, and smelling of marijuana". They litter the fire stairs near the Senate chamber, and those stairs to the fourth level of the Senate car park, which suggest somebody with an interest in the red-coloured leather chairs, but who are we to speculate?

Running for Timor

HERE at The Australian, we know what kind of readers we have. Compassionate people, who aren't doing too badly for themselves. Young at heart, and still up for adventure. People who enjoy keeping fit, even as the years roll by. So, go on: you have one day to enter the world's newest marathon, in Dili. That's right. Dili, City of Peace, in East Timor. It's the world's newest marathon in the world's newest nation. Jose Ramas Horta will be there. So, too, our own Robert de Castella. It's not hard to fly to Dili. You do it from Darwin. There are good places to stay, like Hotel Timor, with crisp sheets and fresh fruit for breakfast. The locals will be running for the future of the fledgling nation. Go on. Do it.

Bidgood forgiven

HAS Queensland MP James Bidgood been bought in from the cold? You must remember him. He was the politician who took photographs of a desperate man who was threatening to set himself alight outside Parliament House in 2008. Kevin Rudd said it was appalling, especially when he then sold them to a newspaper. He was also the one who said God had something to do with the global financial crisis, adding: "We are at the end of times." He represents Labor in the lower house and none higher than Julia Gillard yesterday wished him a happy birthday, from the dispatch box, live on television. Resurrection, anyone?

Esteemed company

WE take seriously nothing that appears in London's The Guardian newspaper except this: our own Melbourne theatre reviewer, Alison Croggon, has been named one of the world's top five must-read critics. She's also one of only three on the list still writing; the others are dead. The list, published yesterday, comprises Pauline Kael (late of the New Yorker, and of this earth, since she died in 2001); James Wood (New Yorker); Susan Sontag (especially for "Notes on Camp"; she's also dead); Peter Campbell (London Review of Books) and Croggon.

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