What people miss in our politics is decisiveness – people who are prepared to take a position.

A cartel occurs when corporations collude to control supply to drive up prices.  Cartels are illegal, and the illegality derives from laws made in the bastion of capitalism, the U S, called anti-trust laws.  When, therefore, a leading Oz miner, Twiggy Forrest, proposed setting up a cartel, the Feds pricked up their ears.  It was therefore surprising that when our Foreign Minister, Rubber Lips, heard of the idea, she said it was ‘worth considering.’  Someone had a word in her ear, and the Foreign Minister backed off.  She was not, after all, an expert on iron ore.  That does beg a few questions, but she said: ‘I do not know the detail of Andrew Forrest’s proposal, but I have since been discussing the matter with the Treasurer, and the Treasurer thinks the specifics of Mr Forrest’s proposal would not be acceptable.’  Now, there you have it – the problem is the specifics – possibly, specifically iron ore. Might it be different with specifically gold or diamonds – God knows, diamonds are cartel heaven.  Is the suggestion generally acceptable?  Perhaps the Foreign Minister should have consulted a lawyer.

What then of the Treasurer, the lip curling champion of razor gangs of days past?  ‘We’re not very supportive of cartels at all’.  Nor are we very  supportive of rape and murder.  The Treasurer could see revenue for the government but there was an ideological issue.  ‘It’s important that we continue to believe, as we always have with liberals, in free markets.’

Nonsense, bromides, evasion, inanity, and motherhood – the bullshit that is OZ politics.

Let us then compare this bullshit to someone who is prepared to take a position – Ted Cruz.  Ted knows how to take a position. He took one speaking non-stop for 21 hours in the Senate on the evils of his President’s views on health care.  Ted is no moderate on God, guns, money, or anything else.  He will really shake up the race for the next President, and this is good.  The prospect of a Bush v Clinton contest is, at its lowest, unappetising.  ‘We need to run a populist campaign standing for the hardworking people of America’, and abolish the IRS.  Ted opened his campaign at Liberty University founded by that Godly populist Jerry Falwell.  His wife Heidi spent time living in Kenya and Nigeria as the daughter of missionaries.  ‘She and her brother compete baking bread.  They bake thousands of loaves of bread to go to the local apple orchard where they sell the bread to people coming to pick apples.’  It sounds like a Nordic idyll.  ‘She goes on to a career in business, excelling and rising to the highest pinnacles, and then Heidi becomes my wife and my very best friend in the world’.

This was not Ted at his plainest.  Heidi has God – big time.  But she also has money big time.  Ted omitted to mention that Heidi is a managing director of Goldman Sachs.  She is the regional head of private wealth management at Houston.  You need more than $40 million to walk through her door.  Goldman Sachs represents different things to different people.  One of its greatest sins is to run a health insurance plan for staff, thus infecting the pinnacle of capitalism with the dross of socialism.  Still, since Heidi doubtless earns seven figures, we need not ask whether Ted is covered by Heidi’s plan.

Finally, I congratulate the BBC for sacking Clarkson and showing that money is not everything.  If they had not sacked him, I would have sacked them.  One of his vastly over-rated mates said that he was gutted to hear of the sacking – straight to the Blacklist.