Winston Churchill's observation to a new MP that, although his opponents sat on the opposition benches, his enemies were sitting behind him, is a truth universally acknowledged among politicians. Nowhere, however, is it more evident than in Australia, where Malcolm Turnbull yesterday became the country's fourth prime minister in two years.
Mr Turnbull toppled his party colleague Tony Abbott in an internal coup, just as Mr Abbott had snatched the leadership from him in 2009, when they were in opposition. Mr Abbott's predecessors as prime minister, Labor's Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard, also fell victim to this culture of political regicide. Ms Gillard ousted Mr Rudd as prime minister in 2010, only for him to topple her in turn three years later.
An abrasive conservative, Mr Abbott was never a popular prime minister. His scepticism about climate change and opposition to legalising same-sex marriage left him outside the mainstream of public opinion. Solo runs such as his widely derided decision to award a knighthood to Prince Philip alienated many of his own MPs. But it was his government’s poor economic performance which saw Mr Abbott’s standing among Australian voters plunge to fresh depths, making the opposition odds-on favourites to win the next election. Since he took office, unemployment has risen, economic growth has slowed, the budget deficit has grown and the Australian dollar has fallen against the US dollar.
A lawyer turned businessman who won international fame in the 1980s when he defended former British spy Peter Wright in the "Spycatcher" case, Mr Turnbull is Australia's most popular politician. A fiscal conservative but a social liberal who backs same-sex marriage and favours a more active approach to combating climate change, he is more popular among Labor and Green voters than among his own party's supporters. Polls suggest Mr Turnbull is his party's best hope of retaining power but the new prime minister has made many enemies on his way to the top. He had better watch his back.