The Spectator’s Notes | 22 November 2012

Lynton Crosby will soon be appointed to run the Conservative strategy for the next election, say reports. Unnamed sources accuse him of saying rude things about Muslims; people mutter about the ‘dog whistle’ campaign of 2005. Such stories involve two great subterranean passions — the desire of rival polling groups to make money and the competition among backroom boys to get credit for electoral success. The public should not be unduly concerned about rows in the servants’ hall, so long as the master is in charge. Possibly it is doubt about this which gives the story legs. But what the anti-Crosby stories also reveal is a weird prejudice about Australians. It is assumed that Australian voters are racist, sexist Les Patersons, and so policies which they like are disastrous here. In fact, Australian public culture is even more politically correct than our own, and no saloon bar bigot can win there.