These are dark days for the Liberal Party. Labor governments now dominate the Australian continent while deeply divided Oppositions are in the political doldrums. When safe seats like Aston suffer big by-election defeats, some Liberal backbenchers are bound to wet their beds.

However, notwithstanding the very real problems that afflict today’s party – just what is the point of the Liberals? It’s facile to over-read the significance of by-elections and to conclude, as many members of the Fourth Estate do, that Australia is set irrevocably on a ‘progressive’ direction.