Tim Blair

PAUL SHEEHAN summarises the Hollingworth

PAUL SHEEHAN summarises the Hollingworth controversy. He's likely completely accurate, particularly on Lindsay Tanner:

Tanner has ensured that Hollingworth has become a victim of what may turn out to be a monumental abuse of due process and a reckless smear of historic proportion ...

If the rape accusation is found to be scurrilous, the chances of [Tanner] resigning as a point of honour are less than zero. He's a hardened factional warrior and a Tolerance Bigot who has learnt nothing from being actively on the losing side of every defining political battle of the past seven years: the federal elections of 1996, 1998 and 2001, the republic, genocide, asylum seekers, Iraq and now Hollingworth. In the latest Labor leadership national opinion poll, Tanner barely registered a pulse. Yet he is busy jockeying for position to eventually be leader of the Labor Party.

This is what Howard is up against. This is why he may stay on as Prime Minister.