IT IS open season on the socially conservative Tony Abbott. Reportedly lined up to become a senior trade envoy for post-Brexit Britain, the former Australian Prime Minister has been subjected to a full cauldron of insults by the UK’s sisterhood.
Abbott’s putative appointment is ‘absolutely staggering’, according to Emily Thornberry. Labour’s malevolent matron declared herself ‘disgusted that Boris Johnson thinks this offensive, leering, cantankerous, climate change-denying, Trump-worshipping misogynist is the right person to represent our country overseas’.
Leaving aside Thornberry’s inane invective, is Tony Abbott a disciple of The Donald? Last January in Washington he gave a speech which was summed up by his line: ‘Somewhat to my own surprise, given my view then that Mr Trump was almost uniquely under-qualified for such an office, I think he’s been quite a success: his style sometimes grates, but he’s been a very good president.’
Spoken during America’s pre-Covid economic boom, that seems a moderate and balanced assessment; but for Donald-detesting Emily, Abbott’s slightly backhanded compliment stigmatises him as a ‘Trump worshipper’.
‘Emily Thornberry and I seldom agree on anything, but she’s right,’ concurred cod-Conservative Caroline Nokes, chair of the Commons women and equalities committee. Interviewed this week on BBC’s Politics Live, Nokes noxiously repeated Thornberry’s accusation of misogyny and added homophobia to Abbott’s charge sheet: ‘He has very poor views on LGBTQ rights. I just don’t think this man should be anywhere near our Board of Trade.’
“He is a misogynist, he has very poor views on LGBTQ rights, I just don’t think this is a man who should be anywhere near our Board of Trade”
Conservative MP Caroline Nokes on former Australian PM Tony Abbott working for UK Board of Trade#politicslive https://t.co/d0A36IpfTR pic.twitter.com/DKuDU6mHbS
— BBC Politics (@BBCPolitics) September 1, 2020
Roman Catholic Abbott’s ‘homophobia’ had been to oppose Australia’s redefinition of marriage: ‘We shouldn’t lightly change what’s been the foundation of our society for generations . . . in favour of a new concept that would have been scornfully rejected even by gay people just a generation ago.’ Abbott ruefully observed that his devout support for traditional marriage ‘attracts an instant social media storm and reputational death’.
He certainly got that right. As for his supposed sexism, Britain’s sniping sorority is repeating the accusation made in 2012, in the Australian parliament, by the then Prime Minister Julia Gillard: ‘If [Abbott, then Leader of the Opposition] wants to know what misogyny looks like in modern Australia, he doesn’t need a motion in the House of Representatives; he needs a mirror.’
Gillard’s grandstanding speech was powerful political theatre. But it is striking that her main complaint regarding Tony Abbott was relatively innocuous: ‘He has said, and I quote, in a discussion about women being under-represented in institutions of power in Australia, “If it’s true that men have more power generally speaking than women, is that a bad thing?” And then a discussion ensues, and another person being interviewed says, “I want my daughter to have as much opportunity as my son.” To which the Leader of the Opposition says, “Yeah, I completely agree, but what if men are, by physiology or temperament, more adapted to exercise authority or to issue command?”’
Julia Gillard’s finger-pointing became 15 minutes of feminist folklore, though whether Abbott was damaged by it is questionable. It should be remembered that it was after, and in spite of, Gillard’s celebrated censuring of Tony Abbott that he became Prime Minister.
Because Abbott apparently dared to wonder aloud whether, in general, men and women might have different and distinct qualities, in 2012 Julia Gillard claimed to be ‘very offended on behalf of the women of Australia’. Similarly, during the past week Sky’s Kay Burley has also been self-importantly indignant: here bumptious Burley and Labour’s Rachel Reeves cosily concur that Tony Abbott is a ‘misogynistic homophobe’.
"I don't think he should be in that job."
Labour's @RachelReevesMP tells @KayBurley it's "not appropriate" for the former Australian PM, Tony Abbott, to be appointed as the UK's trade envoy.
Follow live: https://t.co/fqcXxMLGJH pic.twitter.com/6NjfIB4Ooa
— SkyNews (@SkyNews) September 3, 2020
And here, being Burley’s patsy, is maladroit Matt Hancock.
'Is Tony Abbott the right person to represent us – even if he's a homophobic misogynist?' – @KayBurley
Health Secretary @MattHancock says the former Australian PM is "also an expert in trade" and denies the claims.
Follow #KayBurley live: https://t.co/Qj88d3ncEp pic.twitter.com/ELhm8PzXAo
— SkyNews (@SkyNews) September 3, 2020
Nicola Sturgeon also entered Kay’s coven and, with wearisome predictability, was prompted by Burley to decry Tony Abbott as ‘a misogynist, a sexist, a climate-change denier . . . not the kind of person who should be any kind of envoy for the United Kingdom’.
"Trade is not separate from the values and the reputation that a country wants to project internationally."@NicolaSturgeon tells @KayBurley that Tony Abbott is "not the kind of person who should be a trade envoy for the UK".
Follow live: https://t.co/tRDyBaQ5v4 #KayBurley pic.twitter.com/gpBLGCtdqg
— SkyNews (@SkyNews) September 3, 2020
Soon after Burley’s blitz, Boris Johnson let it be known that no decision has yet been made regarding the appointment of Tony Abbott – a depressing announcement which portends yet another capitulation by our invertebrate Prime Minister.
Boris Johnson's spokesperson says "no decisions have been made" on the appointment of former Australian PM Tony Abbott to the Board of Trade.
?
— Sebastian Payne (@SebastianEPayne) September 3, 2020
Censorious Sturgeon also found it ‘disgraceful . . . deeply offensive and wrong’ that Abbott had callously commented: ‘It might have been better if elderly people were left to die from the effects of Covid.’
But he said no such thing: that quote was Kay Burley disgracefully distorting part of a speech Abbott gave last Tuesday to the UK’s Policy Exchange think tank, the full text of which can be read here and viewed below.
