Mr Dutton, after all, has at his disposal the mighty Australian Border Force that will soon build to 6000 troopers, most of them armed and swinging handcuffs. Immigration Minister Peter Dutton's attack on Fairfax Media failed to gain the support even of his own ministerial colleagues. And they've likely got our metadata. You wouldn't know by looking at him that Mr Dutton was so very, very cross, of course. He hasn't changed his facial expression since he quit the Queensland police force 16 years ago.

He was in the drug squad, an outfit whose members learn to recognise a conspiracy when they think they see one, and to keep staring straight ahead, their faces immobile, in case the evidence turns out to be not quite as simple as they'd hope. Lest you be in doubt concerning the level of Mr Dutton's snakiness, however, you need only know that he has used that word "jihad". Ministers of the Abbott government do not use the term lightly. If a member of the public were to breathe the word into a telephone, large numbers of black-clad anti-terror police would likely appear, brandishing assault weapons, and gorgeously attired members of Mr Dutton's border force would join them, gaily swinging their handcuffs and gingerly fingering the guns they are being trained to use. Islamic and Arabic scholars try valiantly to point out that jihad simply means strive or struggle or persevere, but Abbott government ministers satisfy themselves by defining it as a holy war by death cultists.

It would seem unlikely an Abbott minister like Mr Dutton would accuse, say, News Corp, of indulging in a death cult holy war. Rupert might take it personally, and that wouldn't do at all. His last jihad was against the other side, and was a screaming success. But Mr Dutton has perceived that Fairfax journalists — aided and abetted by the dreadful ABC, the usual suspects of the day — are akin to terrorists because they insist on publishing leaks from his cabinet colleagues that suggest the regime is not entirely at peace within itself. We confess. Of course we do. Mr Dutton is a former Queensland policeman who now has an armed force to back up his belief in a conspiracy. And if he's looked at the metadata, he could have proof, though it might not be quite the jihad he wants to prosecute. Cabinet ministers have been talking to Fairfax journalists, right enough — and they've been waging jihad against each other, trusting their cries of displeasure will resonate and recruit others to their cause.

Little wonder that Mr Dutton, who has struggled all the way to the cabinet after learning how it felt to lose his seat in an election some years ago, is so very, very cross. He's got to find someone to blame, even if the evidence of the identity of the conspirators turns out to be not quite what he'd hope. Follow us on Twitter











