POLITICAL DISASTER IN SLOW MOTION

MALCOLM Turnbull will stay prime minister for a while yet, no matter how many more polls he loses.

The Liberals are so bitterly divided they’d rather die under Turnbull than agree to a replacement who is more likely to save them.

They are paralysed by the hatreds between their Left wing and the conservatives. Neither side will agree to a replacement from the other.

The Liberal Left won’t have a bar of Tony Abbott’s return, and don’t much like the equally conservative home affairs minister, Peter Dutton. They cannot stand the conservatives’ scepticism on global warming or suspicion of high immigration.

And conservatives rightly believe the Left’s Julie Bishop, the most popular contender, is a lightweight of no great policy conviction. What’s more, they know the failed Turnbull experiment shows the Liberals cannot succeed when someone of the Left runs a party of the Right.

And so this torn government muddles on under Malcolm.

History shows how extraordinary it is that Turnbull is still PM, and how dysfunctional the Liberals must be to have kept him so long.

Much attention has been given to Turnbull’s equalling of Tony Abbott’s personal record of 30 losing Newspolls in a row. Only a rogue poll today could prevent it. (This has had to be written before the result.)

It was that losing streak that Turnbull infamously cited in justifying toppling Abbott in 2015, when he said: “We have lost 30 Newspolls in a row. It is clear that the people have made up their mind about Mr Abbott’s leadership.”

But that does not tell the full story about Turnbull’s own extraordinary record of polling failure. Abbott trailed Labor for 30 Newspolls over 16 months; Turnbull’s losing polls have been over 18 months.

Moreover, Abbott had already been forced by Turnbull’s allies to a leadership spill (which he survived) after only 16 losing Newspolls. Before that, Brendan Nelson lasted only 16 losing Newspolls before Turnbull toppled him in 2008. Paul Keating waited just eight losing Newspolls before snatching the Lodge from Bob Hawke. And the Liberals still hesitate with replacing Turnbull?

True, Turnbull still hasn’t broken Julia Gillard’s record of 33 losing Newspolls over 19 months, but she had already had to survive a leadership spill a year before finally falling to Kevin Rudd. And that is a clue to Turnbull’s survival, despite history saying he should be gone.

Labor, too, was riven by hatreds. Many Labor MPs knew Gillard was a loser but could not bear putting their party once more under Rudd’s crazy control. Only when it was too late to save the election did enough relent to allow Rudd to return. Six ministers quit rather than serve under him.

The Liberals’ division is worse. This standoff is about more than the Left’s thinking Abbott is too much the wrecker to be allowed to return.

For many on both sides, it’s a battle for the Liberals’ soul.

Remember minister Christopher Pyne boasting to members of his Left-wing faction that they were “back in the winners’ circle” under Turnbull? They do not want to be losers again under Dutton or Abbott, having to defend coal-fired power stations, cuts to immigration, and attacks on the ABC.

And many conservatives would rather eat a bound copy of Karl Marx’s writings than serve under another Turnbull. They have been repelled by his global warming activism and incoherent electricity policy, find him missing in action from debates on immigration, multiculturalism, identity politics, and the new racism of the Left, and fear a PM Bishop would be worse.

So neither side will budge, thinking, as Belloc’s poem puts it: “Always keep a-hold of Nurse, For fear of finding something worse.”

One day this division will be resolved, but the Liberals’ tragedy is it won’t be until after the election.

A landslide loss will probably sweep away conservatives such as Dutton and attorney-general Christian Porter, for instance. And the survivors will set the rules.

Of course, Turnbull could go before the election if the Liberals finally panic and stampede, but then they’ll just choose a hail-Mary votesaver, not an ideological direction.

And so this disaster unfolds in slomo. Thirty losing polls, 31, 32 …