My heart sank when I read the PM arrived in Washington, DC just a few days after I left. God I miss him. I’ve been following the Trump campaign around for Breitbart News Network, and much as I love The Donald, there’s no substitute for the Silver Fox. It sounds like he was in top form, too. Obama asked him to increase Australia’s military presence in Syria, to which he replied: ‘Some claim that the range of new global threats we see today are symptoms of receding American will, or power, and that we are watching the fraying of the post-war order. We reject those pessimists. America is stronger than ever… Its military is the mightiest in the world.’ Which is Turnbullese for, ‘No, thanks, you can do it yourself.’ So Obama commended Australia for going above and beyond the call of duty in the war against Isis and gave him a 19-gun salute. How charming do you have to be to tell someone to piss off, and they thank you for it? Come to think, if Trump told you to piss off you’d probably thank him for it, too. I’d love to see the both of them on stage together. Malcolm would bring a 17th century French rapier to a gunfight, and I’m not sure he’d lose.

But no, Trump is great. It’s a privilege being attached to one of the great poets of our generation. ‘I have seen women manipulate men with just a twitch of their eye.’ ‘You have Beauty and the Beast. So it works well. And then you have Trump.’ ‘I will gladly accept the mantle of anger.’ I’d love to edit a collection of his most breathtaking lyrics, but someone’s already done so. It’s called Bard of the Deal, and it will be in every school curriculum in ten years. Mark my words.

I admit to having come within a hair’s breadth of working for the Bush campaign, but during the vetting process was dropped for what seemed to me like insincere reasons. My suspicion is that they turned up some of my writings in defence of Australia’s monarchy, and the headlines would’ve been rather damaging. As Trevor Noah pointed out, Bush’s fundraising appeals already sound rather like those Nigerian prince email scams: ‘My father was president, my brother was president, and I was supposed to be president too…’ It’s a headline I’m sure he would rather avoid: ‘Bush campaign enlists leading royalist rabble-rouser’. Yet a 2013 CNN poll placed Americans’ support for monarchy at 13 per cent, which is considerably higher than Bush’s 5 per cent. If you happen to be reading this, sir, know that I’m available to take over your campaign. We’ll leave the GOP, found our own Tory Party, and restore lawful, Godly government to the colonies. The House of Bush will reign forever, and history will glory in the name of Michael Davis, 1st Duke of Boston.

Of course, our Australian compatriots will be given shelter in the new United Principalities of America. Fleeing the regicidal machinations of Turnbull the Lord Protector, Tony Abbott, Earl of Warringah, will establish his government-in-exile. Prince Eric of the Tasman will raise a small army from his castle in Hobart, expelling the Green Menace from that fair island and preparing for Lord Tony’s glorious Restoration. Alan Jones will broadcast loyalist propaganda over Radio Free ‘Straya, while the republicans’ counter-narrative will get clogged in the NBN. Possessing that pernicious and reactionary rag The Spectator will be a capital offence on the mainland; and yet students and intellectuals, who are contrarian by nature, will suddenly discover themselves to be the highest of High Tories, and establish underground societies where verses of the poet-martyr Rowan Dean will be chanted in exultant tones. Some will face the fire, surely; but The Speccie will gain a larger readership than ever before – upwards of one hundred, perhaps two hundred people. Anyway, it beats reading the Monthly, a fate surely worse than death.

But not all men can be heroes, and I understand if Jeb! isn’t prepared to take such bold measures to secure his rightful place on the Turkey Throne. So perhaps a contingency plan is in order. Bernie Sanders is out. I am myself a socialist, but decidedly of the champagne variety; and I doubt Sanders could tell a bottle of champagne if it emptied his catheter bag and rubbed lotion into his ankles. The Senator certainly strikes one as the sort of chap who enjoys a nice warm vodka or three, and indeed appears to do just that prior to mounting the stage. But we’ve had enough of vodka socialists, I think. They’re the rather nasty ones who are apt to brandish a Kalashnikov at anyone whose appearance is decidedly kempt, lest they have access to such a backwards luxury as a tailor or good breeding. And not Hillary, of course. The war crimes and rape cover-ups one can forgive – it’s just the damned pants suits. She looks like Her Majesty the Queen in drag. Yuck. Maybe I’ll start a movement to write in Wyatt Roy. I reckon he could diffuse the whole North Korea fiasco. Wyatt and Kimmy could have a play-date, paint each other’s toenails and talk about how dreamy Justin Trudeau is. Laughter is the best medicine as they say, and that’s especially true of radiation poisoning.

I’ve been away from Australia for a month and oh, I long for her. I miss seeing Malco’s face on the TV at the café where I have my morning coffee. It’s always muted, but that doesn’t matter – I just like to look at him. I miss knocking back a few Boags at the Wynyard Pub in Sydney with my fair-dinkum Aussie mates, fondly insulting each other’s manhood and mouthing off to bouncers who tell us where we can and can’t smoke. By the time I get back I’d like Mike Baird to be deposed and his trendy draconian health laws repealed. Please see to that.