Can I interest anyone in a festive tea-towel? 

The Australian Greens are flogging a new range optimistically titled ‘legends’ featuring – uh – themselves. For a smidge under $25.00 you can dry your plates with Bob Brown’s face and the passive-aggressive observation, ‘The future will either be green or not at all.’ Frankly, if they were serious about saving ink they could have shortened that to, ‘Vote for us or else!’ 

Browsing through, Richard Di Natale has two options. The first is far too long and uninteresting to bother quoting, but the second one reads, ‘You’re a disgrace!’ printed under his face which, to be fair, seems pretty accurate. I’d pick one up except that would mean partaking in the evil capitalist system of exchanging money in return for goods and services. Since Greens MPs keep telling us that capitalism is literally killing the planet, I’ll refrain. 

The tea-towel thing seems to be a bit of a fetish sweeping Australian politics with Sonja Terpstra, Labor member of the Victorian Legislative Council representing the Eastern Metropolitan Region, proudly pimping her brand spanking new Che Guevara tea-towel on Twitter. It comes with the pseudo-intellectual quote, ‘If you tremble with indignation at every injustice, then you are a comrade of mine.’ 

This is the perfect example of ‘buyer beware’ with what we hope is political naivety on behalf of Terpstra. It would be a tad off-brand if she really meant to sing the praises of a Cuban mass murderer also known for other such tea-towel-friendly quotes as, ‘A revolutionary must become a cold killing machine motivated by pure hate’ and, ‘We’re going to do for blacks exactly what blacks did for the revolution. By which I mean: nothing.’ 

Considering Terpstra left the Tweet up, it remains unclear whether she subscribes to Guevara’s unique brand of homophobic revolutionary spirit with a side order of torture and re-education camps … or if this is what the Labor party are going for in 2021. 

The best shopping experience has to be Communist-enthusiasts Extinction Rebellion, who are flogging enough merchandise to enslave a small Chinese city – most of which ends up slopping out of city bins after a protest binge. Forget tea-towels, you can get a ‘The masses against the classes!’ tapestry to hang over your dinner parties to remind everyone of your dedication to reviving class warfare or a bedspread with ‘We are the problem!’ just in case you were tempted to reproduce. 

The Australian Labor Party have an online shop too, but it is disappointingly closed until February 2021. Meanwhile, the Liberal Party don’t bother with tempting tea-towels – cutting straight to business with the [DONATE ] button. So disappointing. They could have made a killing out of a ‘Naughty Naked MPs’ calendar shoot. 

To be honest, I think I’ll just go and buy a dishwasher instead.