Abbott’s address to the Press Club was a “please don’t sack me speech”. He was begging for his job. It was not about popularity, but competency he said. The problem is just that. He has proven to be incompetent.

“I promise to be more consultative, more collegiate”. Mark Reilly pointed out that he had made that promise 15 times in the last five years.

Joe Hockey suggests he should retain his job because the country needs stability. By that reckoning we should retain an incompetent leader because  stability is more important. Get your head around that.

In Australia, over the past few years we have had a revolving door attitude towards leadership. The Labor party was thrown out, not because of its policies, or its governance but simply because of instability of leadership. The Gillard-Rudd farce became too much for the Australian public.

It has to be said that John Howard was unpopular but respected. His longevity of tenure proves it.

Tony Abbott, said to be the best opposition leader ever (something I have never been able to fathom) sought in his time of office to belittle the office of Prime Minister on a day-to-day basis.

The current undermining of Abbott’s  leadership, which will continue even if he retains his job, was eminently predictable. Words written to describe his character, or lack of it, reach Biblical proportion.

His history is that of an incompetent lying bastard, a gutter pugilist politician with no redeeming features. One who openly displays his disdain for others with vile hate filled utterances. A person of a bygone era who retains a love for the country in which he was born, over and above, the one he now leads. He is a Luddite without any comprehension of technology and science and the benefits to mankind they will bring. He governs for those who have and not for those who have not. His attitude to equality in terms of social values is legendary.

The fact that his party elected him in the first place, given that all this was known, reflects as much on the party as it does on him.

What sort of a leader whose leadership has been so abysmal-so condemned in the court of public approval, would then suggest that the good performance of colleagues is as a result of his splendid captaincy? That’s arrogance of the highest order.

“It takes a good captain to help all the players of a team to excel”, he said.

What sort of a leader in the face of all this would openly suggest that he is good at his job and needed to skite about it more?

What sort of a leader would insult voters by suggesting that the electorate only elected Labor Governments in “a fit of absentmindedness”?

What sort of a leader would say this and then do the opposite?

“It is an absolute principle of democracy that governments should not and must not say one thing before an election and do the opposite afterwards. Nothing could be more calculated to bring our democracy into disrepute and alienate the citizenry of Australia from their government than if governments were to establish by precedent that they could say one thing before an election and do the opposite afterwards.”

What sort of leader would with spellbinding, cringe worthy ignorance call social media “graffiti on a wall” while his government spends 4.3 mil on finding out the extent of its influence.

Seriously, bullshitting is bad enough but when someone believes their own, that is intellectual dishonesty.

Leadership is a combination of traits that etch the outlines of a life and grow over time. They govern moral choices and demonstrate empathy toward others. In the recipe of good leadership there are many ingredients. Few leaders have all of them due to our human fallibility. However there are some ingredients that are of necessity.

So if I were electing a leader I would have a check list of the following. Dogged determination, credibility, respect, truthfulness, vision, a positive attitude, trust, delegation skills, confidence, creativeness and ideas, honesty, the ability to inspire, intuition, good communication skills, morality and ethics.

The question then arises which, if any of these attributes did the Liberal Parliamentary Party did they believe Tony Abbott had.

Australian voters might like to also reflect on that.

A just released Essential Poll asked the following question:

Q. Which of the following describe your opinion of the Prime Minister, Tony Abbott?

Out of touch with ordinary people  72% +6
Arrogant  65% +4
Narrow-minded  63% +2
Erratic  60% +8
Hard working  58% -4
Superficial  55% +1
Intolerant  54% +1
Intelligent 50% -1
Aggressive  45% -4
Good in a crisis  36% -6
Understands the problems facing Australia  35% -5
A capable leader  34% -9
More honest than most politicians  30% –
Trustworthy  27% -3
Visionary  22% -5

On the evidence it is hard to believe that there are those who actually support him.

Julia Gillard may have been unpopular but competent she was. On the other hand Tony Abbott is neither.

Now the Liberal Party is caught between a rock and a hard place. On the one hand it retains an unpopular characterless Prime Minister with no redeeming features because they need an image of stability. On the other, his lack of competence for the job will create instability and mean one term only.

All because they didn’t question his qualifications for leadership.

They and we might like to do the same in the future. The catalyst for all this has been Abbotts love of all things English. His knighthood obsession has become his own personal Knightmare.

Given the choice between stability and competency I would settle on the latter because competency brings about stability.