everyone loves Kevin Rudd

Allow me to be the first person to say, Julia Gillard is the most attractive deputy leader of the Australian Labor Party of all time.

Firstly - I know there’s not much competition, Paul Keating aside.

Secondly, before you say it - I know it’s a fairly sexist thing to say. In my defence, when a politician has her picture taken looking glamourous on a beach, I think she’s inviting a certain amount of phwoaaring.

Thirdly - let me qualify myself - she’s the most attractive etc. until she opens her mouth. Then it’s another story completely.

Anyway, as you probably know by now, Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard have won, quite convincingly and are now leading the ALP. Congratulations to them, I say.

I have mixed feelings about Rudd. He’s clearly very intelligent and manages to string a sentence together on a fairly regular basis. He’s also friendly enough to the US not to scare the right-wing press too much. He’s a christian, which doesn’t win too many points with me, but probably helps make him more electable.

The only thing real downside, apart from the fact he looks like the sort of kid Harry Potter would have shunned for being too geeky, is that he hasn’t much experience of domestic issues.

As for Beazley…

I hate to be uncharitable, but I have no sympathy for the guy. [edit: this was written before I found out about his brother. I didn't mean to be that heartless. just a little bit] He’s had multiple chances to lead the party and consistently failed. Not only has he failed to articulate an argument against Howard, on some issues he hasn’t even tried. I’m thinking especially on Tampa back in 2001. The best thing for him to do is retire and live on his $100,000 a year pension, or whatever it is.

ps. I did some running at some point in the weekend. At least I think I did?