But facts are facts – the polls showed that Turnbull was the Liberal leader best placed to defeat the Labor Party. Attempts to paint Morrison’s recent woes as some sort of vengeful moderate insurrection come off as wholly naive and, in many ways, laughable.

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The reality is that the conservative base has not come back to the Liberal Party since Turnbull was removed from office, but certainly more moderates and swing voters have deserted us. And beneath our facade of dorky caps and Aussie slang we hope that voters won’t notice that we no longer have a liberal policy agenda of economic freedom and individualism. But they do notice. They see us jumping from one new idea to the next depending on where we think we can pick up a few votes.

Every leadership spill in the past 10 years – whether against Rudd, Gillard, Abbott or Turnbull – has resulted in a honeymoon bump in the polls. Until now. Removing Turnbull and installing Scott Morrison has been the most pointless and destructive spill in Australia’s history, well at least since Billy McMahon in 1971.

In the eight Newspolls conducted since Morrison took the reins, he has averaged a dismal 45 per cent two-party preferred. Turnbull, however, averaged 49 per cent and outpaced Bill Shorten as preferred prime minister by a country mile in an age in which the personal vote of the leader means that much more. While this isn’t being in the lead, historically it has been seen as an election-winning position for any incumbent government.