The FBI certainly stirred up the US election when it announced it had found more of Hillary Clinton’s emails on the computer of the arch sleaze-bag, Anthony Weiner, the husband of Huma Abedin, Clinton’s closest adviser. The announcement provoked the Clinton camp into outrage at the very idea that its sainted candidate might not, after all, be as pure as the driven snow. I was not surprised at this revelation, however, as it confirms that Hillary Clinton is as shifty and devious as many of us thought she was: using a private server to share government emails with a staff member whose husband had a known proclivity to flash happy snaps of his genitalia to any woman he stumbled across on the internet, then claiming that 30,000 emails were simply missing, shows behaviour bordering on the bizarre and an unfitness for responsible office. Secondly, it reminds us that when it comes to sexual fantasies, the Republicans talk about them, but the Democrats actually carry them out. So why is Trump worse? Thirdly, I was interested in the way the Democrat machine painted the FBI’s discovery: why, they exclaimed, the fact that this news came out a week before the election shows it is a conspiracy against Clinton to deprive her of her just entitlement to be president. They did not have the same reaction to the extraordinary co-incidence that all of Trump’s accusers, after suffering in silence for years, should have miraculously come together at the same time to accuse Trump when he was looking good in the polls. But the worst feature of the US election, a sin committed by both Clinton and Trump, is that they both say they will appoint only judges who agree with their policies on abortion, health care, state rights, gun law, election law, freedom of religion and all the other issues dividing America. The very idea that only judges who agree with the government on highly contentious political issues should be appointed is destructive of any notion of judicial independence and would destroy the checks and balances of power. At a time when people no longer trust governments, political parties or the media, the judiciary is all that’s left to protect us; undermine it and you can say goodbye to democratic government.

I do not want to alarm Liberal party voters, but I was present last weekend at an event that should not have given them much confidence. It brought to mind a word that the younger generation are fond of using, ‘spooky’, to describe an otherwise inexplicable event that gives rise to an uncomfortable feeling that all is not right. It occurred at an otherwise harmless event, the annual Australian law conference in Melbourne. It was pretty much the usual thing with the usual speeches, or ‘papers’, as they are called at conferences, on our cruel and wicked refugee laws, how the poor terrorists are the real victims of the law and how everything the federal government does is contrary to international law. The latter, of course, is the gift that keeps on giving, as international law is what you make up as you go along. There was not a word, of course, about the issue that lawyers should be concerned with, the iniquitous restriction on freedom of speech in Section 18C and how the Human Rights Commission is the main force for stifling human rights in Australia. But the spooky part of the event was when the Prime Minister, who had been secured by the organisers as the key note speaker, made the closing speech. He entered the cavernous conference hall with assorted guards and acolytes and undertook the long, lonely march to the rostrum in complete silence. The crowds did not rise like one man, even to applaud him politely, let alone show the slightest enthusiasm for his presence. The chilling silence was, to coin a phrase, ‘spooky’. I say this, not to add to the PM’s obvious difficulties in winning public support, but to tell the Liberal party apparatchiks that something is seriously wrong in the handling of their leader’s appearances. To let the leader loose at a public event, arriving late, with obviously no preparation, not even a few warm-up supporters to give him a welcoming hand, and nothing much to say apart from how brilliant he was in the Spycatcher case, shows a remarkable indifference to moulding the public persona of a political leader who is struggling to earn popular support and respect. But, mind you, he is getting better and showing some backbone; his new refugee law, in particular, is spot on. Properly handled and presented, he can win the next election.

My other outing last weekend was the annual book and CD sale conducted by 3MBS FM, the Melbourne classical music station. It is non-profit and non-government, which means it receives nothing from the government and has to find its own money to keep going. It does this by subscriptions, donations, volunteer staff, sponsorship and fund raising events like the book and CD fair. As Dr Johnson said, seeing a dog walking on its hind legs, the remarkable thing was not whether it was a good show or not, but that the dog could do it at all. Likewise, the remarkable thing about 3MBS FM is that it survives at all, and broadcasts 24 hours a day, without costing the public a cent. It has none of the bottomless pit of money and countless employees, managers and strategic consultants that the ABC’s classical music station can draw on; yet the volunteers at 3MBS FM provide a service as good as and often better than the ABC. Why do we keep asserting that governments are better at doing things when they clearly are not? All they do is give us another kick along the road to bankruptcy.

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