Heaven knows why a respectable family newspaper such as The Australian continues to publish the pronouncements of the thinking man’s Peter Foster, Bob Carr, but it was at it again today with a piece entitled Coronavirus: Conservatives ride big government to rescue.

Beijing Bob was in full flight, demonstrating the vast breadth and depth of his intellect mentioning Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, Bill Clinton, Tony Blair, Ayn Rand and — gasp — both Friedrich Hayek’s Constitution of Liberty and Milton Friedman’s Capitalism and Freedom.

He even referenced France by citing “Macronian reform”, a concept that appears to resemble rivers flowing backwards — something that is known to happen, but a rare freak of nature indeed.

The piece, as you may have gathered by now, was 100 per cent Beijing Bob; all piss and wind, but with important-sounding words.

But — and this is probably just our coronavirus cabin fever as we squat under the kitchen table, covered by a bedsheet soaked in Dettol, eating nothing but cold spaghetti from a tin, great-grandad’s trusty old World War I Lee Enfield by our sides — we found the last line a little concerning.

“Right now, a powerful state directing action is what we need,” he wrote.

Corona craziness, we know, but that wasn’t an invitation from Beijing Bob for his mate Zi Jinping to invade and make him the Gauleiter of Australia, was it?

These are strange times, you know.

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