Some readers may recall that a few weeks back I told you about Canada’s new conservative opposition leader Pierre Poilievre. As is the wont in the Great White North (that nickname will have to go if the modern-day Puritans get a say), he was chosen by the party membership, not by the other MPs in the partyroom. And he gave every indication of being a real conservative, amongst other things promising drastically to cut back the national broadcaster CBC’s budget, to fire the money-printing governor of the Bank of Canada (our Reserve Bank), and to fight back hard against wokery and cancel culture.

Remember, this was the backbencher who chose to march with the truckdriver protesters. Basically, just think back to how every time former prime minister Morrison & co. took the spineless, invertebrate, Labor-lite fork in the road. By contrast, when two roads diverge in the political forest Poilievre continues to promise to take the brave, conservative path.

Know what? The first polls are out since he took over and he and the Conservatives have jumped to a seven point lead over Justin Trudeau and his left-wing Liberal party.  (Note to readers: I used to point out how the Liberal party in Canada was the main left-of-centre political party while in Australia they were the main right-of-centre choice. But why bother making that distinction these days what with all the state Liberal parties being woke, woeful, wind-blown and to the left of Paul Keating while Peter Dutton is in witness protection somewhere?)

Fire all those political advisers who counsel caution, basic leftiness and knavery rather than bravery. They gave us Scott Morrison, in my view one of the worst prime ministers in Australia’s history. Voters want principle-driven, conviction politicians. In Canada Pierre Poilievre thus far is delivering just that and the polls are as good as any Tory can hope for in Canada. Trudeau and the CBC (but I repeat myself) are apparently panicking. Expect to see brutal ad hominem attacks on the new Tory leader. Also expect Trudeau and the even more left-wing small party propping his minority government up to put off the next election for as long as possible, due a little over two years from now.

Then there is that other politician with the ‘P’ surname. Dominic Perrottet, Premier of New South Wales. Many is the time some friend or other has told me ‘but he’s actually very conservative, he just hasn’t got the numbers in the partyroom to stand up to Matt Green’ (not a typo!). And I think this is being put forward as some sort of exculpatory claim or explanation. But it really isn’t any sort of excuse, is it? Imagine you have to choose between two politicians. One has no principles, no values and an unbreakable addiction to focus-group guidance. The other values small government, free speech, sane energy and social policies, most things conservative and has a dislike of wokery but refuses to do anything about these convictions. He prefers to stay in office, even if it means abandoning the very conservative positions he himself holds. My question is why the latter sort of figure is believed to be more admirable than the former. Personally, I think I prefer the rogue opportunist who blows with the prevailing winds to the pusillanimous coward. And isn’t that what Dominic Perrottet gives every impression of being? A coward. Why else does he play lapdog to Matt Kean and the hard-green wing of the NSW Liberal party? Is it rank ambition and the love of being premier? Is it the chauffeur-driven limousine? Is it a belief that things would be even worse were he not premier?  Dom, how much worse could things be under a Team Kean? And anyway, you’re lending these renewable-lefty-wokesters a thin veneer of conservative respectability.

Look, the Libs look like being slaughtered in NSW next year. They are overseeing a program about which the woke wing of the Labor party would be proud. Crazy on energy. Hard feminist criminal consent laws that no one who believed in the presumption of innocence would go near. The world’s fastest falling school standards (how is that even possible?) while buying into any and near-on every passing woke idiocy. Okay, Perrottet is better than his (does the man declare his pronouns I wonder?) predecessor. But so what? If you stand up for your beliefs and the Matt Kean wing of the Liberal party turfs you out then so be it. You go with your head held high and some sort of principled legacy. Right now Dominic’s legacy looks like being somewhere between laughable and pathetic – you pick. Last weekend at the Conservative Political Action Conference various conservative politicians were shown giving short messages of support. When Perrottet’s came on the thousand member audience booed. They booed you Dom. As I said, rank cowards are disliked more than value-free weathervanes.

Speaking of CPAC, Mark Latham there made the point that the various small, right-of-centre parties need to put personality and peripheral policy differences to one side and form a new joined-together political entity. He is right. (And I say it again, in no world would I ever have imagined back in 2005, when I got here, that in 2022 the Australian politician with whom I would have the most in common is Mark Latham. But it’s true!) Come on Lib-Dems, One Nation, United Australia party. Get your acts together, both metaphorically and literally. As a new, combined party you have every chance of polling at least as high as the Greens on the hard left. In a couple of elections you’d have the same Senate sway as the Greens do now. You could start winning the odd House of Representatives seat. At the very least you could influence a Liberal party that has shown itself to be virtually worthless of late. Let’s do it. Let’s see a new amalgamated political party that actually aims for something other than Labor-lite.

And contains politicians who aim for something other than the chauffeur-driven limo.