I vividly recall the results of the quantitative and qualitative polling done by the Liberal secretariat soon after the Andrew Peacock coup, that ditched John Howard, in the run up to the 1990 election. Similar polling was also done by the ALP, but the takeout was quite different.

Bob Hawke seized on the issue of "disunity", recognising that it is "death" in politics, coining the campaign slogan, "If you can't govern yourselves, you can't govern the country".

The Liberals chose to ignore the overwhelming message, preferring, initially at least, to run with "Andrew is the answer". Some of us inquired immediately: "If Andrew is the answer, then what the hell is the question?" It was soon dropped, but the lesson, and vulnerability, on disunity was ignored – and still is.

With the disunity exposed by "Pyne vs Abbott", and "Abbott vs Turnbull", over the last few days, the lesson still has not been learned. They would all want us to believe that politics is a contest of ideas/ideologies/even principles, but their actions confirm it is simply a contest of egos – so too with "Rudd/Gillard/Rudd".