DOUBLE HUMBUG: The Age Boycotts Footy Show Despite Not Ever Advertising On It // The Age Increases Price While Claiming To Help Families Cut Costs

The Spencer Street Soviet consistently serves up more humbug than the average Sovereign Hill sweet shop:

■ In today's Aged - the mouse that roared (read the second last paragraph):

The Age has also redirected its advertising on Nine away from The Footy Show this week in response to an attack on the paper and its staff by Newman.

In response to this hard-assed gesture from the Age, we'd have to say that we've never seen an ad for the Age on the footy show, despite being an avid viewer.  We did see one during one of those recent spate of Abba revival clip shows, but we can't be sure. It was just a collection of wannabe inner-city leftard interleckchuals standing in front of Luna Park telling everyone how important it is to know what's going on.  Der.

■  The "Newspaper of Last Year's" cover price has gone up this week as the OC exclusively revealed back in April. Monday to Friday is now just $1.50 and this Sunday's is just $2.  Bargain.  Or not.  The early evidence from newsagents is that retail sales are already sliding as a result of the price increase.  Price increases are never welcomed by newspaper readers, and let's face it, there's always something else to spend that handful of coins on in a newsagency. 

A Tattslotto ticket, an Intralot scratchie (supposedly coming soon courtesy of a billionaire Greek ex Stasi spy bearing gifts), a packet of chewies, you get the idea.  In the OC's humble view though, you should hold onto your coins, because by the end of the year, you might be able to buy the whole age company with the contents of your piggy bank.

■ Tying together those last two points, we've managed to find an old Age ad whilst trawling through the garbage. We've put it on Youtube for your amusement.

It's a few months old mind, but it's dripping with irony. It's promoting a story about how the price of everything is going up, up, up, and how the Aged can tell you "how families can cost cut".  We've got a good suggestion on that front.

Game on

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MAD MARK: The Selective Memory of Labor's Coodabeen Champion

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Mark Latham has a clearly very flexible mind.

He argues in today's Fin Review disapprovingly that Premier Iemma has "neutered" ALP branch members' power. Much like Mark Latham and Laurie Brereton did when they engineered the preselection by fiat of rockstar Peter Garrett into the safe seat of Kingsford-Smith despite the strong opposition of local branch members who backed a NSW Right patriot. Garrett is said to be not such a bad chap for a chat around Ozzie's but it's not hard to make an argument that he was one of Labor's worst performing front-benchers during the 2007 election.

Of course the truth is that it's increasingly easy to discredit a process where a hundred old dears, hacks and factional automatons put up their hand to preselect someone. No one can defend such an undemocratic process. It's so undemocratic that it shouldn't come as any surprise that Leaders, including Latham, will just do what they think is best rightly saying that their legitimacy to do so comes from the people who elected them. It's far from ideal but entirely understandable.

Simultaneously Latham argues that the NSW Right is controlled by people who aren't "true believers" of the kind we loved from the "Keating/Richardson era". That's clearly not right either. It's entirely understandable that the ETU don't support privatisation of the industry they cover. The OC would no doubt do the same if we found ourselves running a union representing power workers. It's not an ideological position, it's simply defending a situation where your members are in relatively cushy circumstances compared with what would happen when private investors bought the operation.

The fact that the ETU in NSW are such a big part of the numbers and heart and soul of the NSW Right is the complicating factor. It doesn't mean they've lost their way. It just means that on this particular issue, life is complicated. As it always is.

THE LAST OF THE MOHICANS DEFENDING CREAN'S LEADERSHIP

But as complicated as life can be, it's nowhere near as confusing as Mark Latham's though process. His assertion that "right-wing unions" derailed Simon Crean's leadership of the Labor party neglects to deal with poll numbers that only Brendan Nelson could envy, a party in terror of being wiped out with him as Leader and a public that figured he was a very negative, nasty bloke.

So Latham is wrong if he's saying that - contrary to his own performance as Leader - branch members should have more power in their political parties. The people who fund them through their taxes and have to live with them as their representatives should be vested with more power.

Latham seems always on the cusp of some great insight but just can't quite get out the words, muddled by his desire to lash all his former colleagues.

But for his mad end, he could and should have been a Minister in this Rudd government. Making things happen, terrifying bureaucrats, attacking vested interests. He could have been a great minister. Instead we get this Mark Latham. Critical of Party leaders ignoring branch members, despite his form of doing much the same. Critical of the NSW Right for not being right wing enough despite him usually rabbiting on about them being CIA agents. Critical of everything and everyone for random reasons driven by a pretty strong knowledge of Labor's past but little clue about its future.

Not many people will remember Doc Wheildon. A former Fitzroy forward who kicked a huge number of goals in a limited number of games there but caused a lot of trouble at the Club. They got rid of him and after wandering around a bit, ended up being drafted for one last serious crack at the big-time by the greatest of all football clubs that lives on the Windy Hill. Sheeds loved trying to turn around these challenging sort of blokes. Often it worked.

How did the story end? He hit the grog on King Street one night. Couldn't get a cab. Decided to hail one by means of standing right in front of a fast-moving taxi. It couldn't stop in time, mowed him down, breaking both of the coodabeen champion's legs. He never played again.

And that's what Mark Latham was for the Labor party. So much talent and all completely wasted.

Game on.

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RED TED: More Jimmy Carter Than George W

The Age's Paul Austin thinks of Ted Baillieu, he sees George W Bush. At the Spencer Street Soviet, this is not the highest praise going, as you might imagine, so it was a curious analogy.

Of course in the very long run, history will record President Bush as a good president who had the courage to act to crush terrorism and the resolve not to back off in spite of enormous risk to his country and himself. I'd concede that's a minority view at the moment, mainly because rebuilding Iraq has been so difficult.

History tells us that the way of the appeaser is inevitable catastrophe. Stand up to the bully and you might cop a punch in the nose but at least you'll live safer and with more honour. Act the coward and your victimhood is guaranteed.

In Red Ted, he did not confront an existential threat as America does and did. It was merely a blog designed to annoy him. Simple as that.

He was told by an ally at 104 Exhibition Street that two staff there were responsible for a blog that denigrated him. He was happy with the decision to sack them. He was silent - as were others - for a month.

The OC became aware of the story and for reasons hard to fathom, the culprits were named, shamed, vilified and described as part of a vast right-wing conspiracy against Ted.

Make no mistake, Ted's reaction was quite calculated. It wasn't driven by the anger of the moment. He had a month to contemplate what he might do. His mission was not to avenge the blog but to secure factional advantage for himself and his Baillieu-David Davis group.

As one of his supporters told the OC and we reported at the time "This is a once in a lifetime opportunity." And true enough it might have looked that way to them at that moment.

But Baillieu is driven by his demons. He doesn't control the party he leads. The party he leads thinks he's unelectable. They think he stands for ideas from a pre-John Howard age. They think he repeatedly misuses his role as Leader to attempt to support his factional mates.

And that's why he's unfit for the role. And why Terry Mulder will lead the Victorian Liberals in 2010.

Game on.

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