Came so far for beauty

Tony Abbott skeptics couldn't have made this up if they/we/I tried. Here are the things Tony Abbott did not do on the way to London:

• Cheer on the Saints (maybe a tazering would cure him of jetlag);
• Spot boats in the Arafura Sea, no doubt bound straight for a Centrelink in a marginal seat in suburban Perth;
• Dialogue and liaise with our neighbours/ trading partners/ partners in the war against terror and drugs and boat people and stuff;
• Cheer on Our Sporting Champions in Dehli, and Mohali (two short! Here's someone who knows how that feels);
• Be photographed with Prince Charles;
• Call for greater ties between India and Australia;
• Visit students staying away from Australian universities and commiserate with them about namby-pamby policing in Labor-governed states;
• Visit nuclear power companies and commiserate with them about Labor uranium policy, being also both namby and at the same time pamby;
• Apologise to Dr Haneef;
• Visit Our True Aussie Heroes in Afghanistan (yes, he might go to see them on the way home, but by then it will be me-tooism);
• Visit Iraq and receive the appropriate gratitude for Australia's contribution to making that country what it is today (here's up ya, Andrew Wilkie);
• Visit Israel-Palestine and encourage cheaper housing on the fringes of Australian cities;
• Drop in on the Pope - anyone the lefties are bagging can't be all bad, eh? and/or
• Visit Gallipoli and/or Villiers-Brettonneux and lay a wreath.

John Howard would have done all of those things (except for apologising to Dr Haneef). Abbott, however, has to get his beauty sleep, so that he can see with his own eyes a Conservative government that can work with liberals to get things done, like climate change.

Skipping Afghanistan to go to a confab in England, and rub shoulders with people who knew him at Oxford and have gone further than him, undoes all of that Action Man image he built up before the election. All that red-sluggos and riding bikes was designed to create an image of I can run rings around you, pussy. I do a dozen things before you've had your first Rainforest Alliance coffee from your sucky plastic-and-cardboard container. Resistance is futile, I shall prevail.

Instead, the PM has the full range of action shots (now in Afghanistan, now with the soccer, now eliciting praise from NATO and drawing a thread between diggers in Afghanistan and those from other theatres who've made the world safe for, etc.). Abbott is pictured waddling to a party like he's just dismounted a bony horse to get there. So much for beauty sleep - like Menzies in 1940, Abbott will be feted by third-raters in Tory ranks and dispatched home to a frontbench that is starting to wake up to his inadequacies. Unlike Menzies, when Abbott's gone he is gone forever. Plenty of time for sleepy bye-byes then.