End of road for MP

THIS may be the end of the political road for Simon Ramsay.

The Upper House MP has done the wrong thing and made a terrible mistake — driving a vehicle at nearly four times the legal alcohol limit — and then the right thing: admitting all to his party bosses and the broader public.

The fact that there weren’t more long knives out to get him yesterday at his most vulnerable political moment perhaps speaks to the regard with which many hold him after years in public life — as an MP, and before that at the Victorian Farmers Federation.

Even Premier Dan Andrews, who can be what political types call a proper partisan ‘hater’, only had mild things to say about a Liberal MP in a lot of trouble.

But Mr Ramsay has been more like someone from the British conservative tradition rather than a political ranter and raver. In his political life he has also had a mind of his own. He went a different way to many of his party colleagues on the voluntary euthanasia bill. And on local issues such as urging federal City Deal funding for the Convention Centre he displayed an independent streak.

If this reads like something of a political obituary, that is because that is more than likely what Mr Ramsay is facing.

After the Addy broke the story, Opposition Leader Matthew Guy indicated Mr Ramsay may not get to contest this year’s election.

The public is rightly highly intolerant of drink drivers on our roads being a potentially fatal menace to others.

There are the practical realities of being able to cover the massive Western Victoria region as a local member without a licence and without shunting the cost home to the taxpayer.

And there are the political realities of being a confessed drink driver with just four months to go to what is certain to be a bitterly fought election on the issue of law and order.

He may soon have to swap the catcalls and howls of the Upper House for the lowing of the cattle in Birregurra.