101 Uses for a John Howard

After ten years in power, any Prime Minister’s going to start getting a bit on the nose and I strongly suspect people are starting to take the stairs more often at Parliament House these days. A recent poll asking whether voters would prefer to be trapped in an elevator with John Howard or be locked up in Guantanamo bay for 6 years was strongly in favour of the Cuban getaway, prompting the PM to claim that a majority of Australians still support David Hicks’ continuing detention.

One of the more lingering stenches in John’s elevator is his very sensible refusal to sign up to the Kyoto protocol on climate change on the grounds that it isn’t quite ticketyboo. Now while the more hysterical world leader might feel that an impending worldwide cataclysm suggests taking any port in a storm (or apocalyptic uber-cyclone as the case may be) John has maintained a cool head in the face of soaring world temperatures and bravely followed the United States’ lead in being one of the only two industrialised not to present a united front on saving the world from catastrophe.

While we’ll no doubt thank him for this visionary approach one day, some of the more unkind Kyoto signatories could well liken John to a large cloud of greenhouse-causing flatulence in an enclosed space. The only politician who might actually be worse to be stuck in an elevator with would probably be Peter Beattie, who would no doubt insist on immediately and with gusto drinking not only his own urine, but yours as well.