The tendency of Australian politics to shadow British politics is never more conspicuous than when both countries are led by people who didn’t so much drink from the same well in their formative years as fall headlong down it. Once Keir Starmer had announced his intention of recognising a Palestinian state it was inevitable that Mr Albanese – the wall of whose Camperdown council house bedroom was probably adorned with the same Che Guevara poster that was Blu Tacked to the wall of Mr Starmer’s Leeds hall of residence bedroom – would follow suit. To ex-pat poms like me, Albo’s reverence for and identification with British Labour is manifest in his tendency to refer to Liberals as Tories. Even amongst the UK’s Conservative base this is a word whose provenance is not well understood any more. But when an emotional Albo responded to a reporter’s post-election congratulations with the statement ‘Fighting Tories; it’s what I do’, as far as most Australians are concerned, he might as well have said ‘Fermat’s Last Theorem; ça c’est ma vie.’

To preserve the so-called Special Relationship Mr Starmer sweetened his pro-Palestinian pill by giving Mr Trump a banquet in a real castle and a ride in a real horse-drawn carriage (the grander, open-topped one doubtless only eschewed for fears the wind might discompose the Presidential comb-over). Sadly, such state-sponsored sycophancy is not an option for Albo. So it is testimony to the specialness of Australia’s relationship with the US a) that Mr Trump did not let Albo’s pro-Palestinian stance postpone further the meeting which the latter has waited so long for, and b) that his subsequent doubling-down on Australia’s already silly net zero target didn’t scupper it completely. It is bad enough for Australians that, thanks to Mr Bowen’s refusal to even consider adding nuclear to our mix, the sky above Canberra is now full of what looks very much like pie. But to the man who put America’s withdrawal from the Paris Agreement at the top of his post-election to-do list, Albo’s commitment to topping that league must look very much like a middle finger.

However differently Starmer’s and Albanese’s policies affect their American counterpart, they are having the same effect on their respective electorates; which is to say, they are shredding faith in two-party politics. More and more ordinary Brits and Australians no longer believe that the main parties have either the ability or desire to address their countries’ two biggest problems: the cultural cost of mass immigration and the actual cost of renewable energy. Seeing this, some more principled members of those big parties are breaking away as independents or joining smaller ones whose only power prospects are as a junior coalition partner. But in Britain, thanks to the failure of governments of either stripe to keep Brexit promises, the duopoly dissolution has reached the point where the next government looks likely to be formed by a single party which didn’t even exist ten years ago. One could argue that the same thing has already happened in the US, since the only bit of the Republican Party Mr Trump hasn’t changed is its name.

‘Conservative politics in Australia looks to be in the worst shape it’s ever been in,’ said Kel Richards on this page recently. And more than one speaker at Cpac Brisbane last week opined that Australia is ready for its own version of Reform. To get similar traction with Australian conservatives, such a party must find a leader who will follow the Churchillian maxim of having experts on tap rather than on top. Whose polices, as a result, will not fly in the face of common sense or contradict the evidence of common experience. It must be the party for people who, after being told for years that sea levels are rising, stand on their local beach and say, ‘No they’re not’. Who hear ABC guests say women can have penises and say, ‘No they can’t.’ Who, told that closing coal-fired power stations will make electricity cheaper, look at their bills and say, ‘No it won’t.’ Who, having read articles saying the Great Barrier Reef is dying, visit it and say, ‘No it isn’t.’ Who, hearing politicians who live in Sydney’s eastern suburbs saying multiculturalism works, watch sharia rallies in the western surburbs and say, ‘No it doesn’t.’ There was a time when those who zigged when the establishment zagged were mavericks. In Australia today they are increasingly the norm. With apologies to W.B. Yeats, if the centre-right cannot hold, what rough beast, its hour come round at last, slouches towards Canberra to be born? Are we ready for an Australian Contrarian party?