Close the borders in the name of decency and compassion - not since George Orwell's 1984 satire has logic been so twisted. Tony Abbott's speech in London didn't tell the real story about Australia, writes Barrie Cassidy.

The political shackles that bind leaders - the restraint against their most basic instincts - are sometimes a helpful thing.

This week Tony Abbott broke free of the shackles and exposed his creed: a fundamental rejection of negotiation and compromise, and a refusal to allow compassion to get in the way of a nation's self-interest.

Delivering the Margaret Thatcher lecture at London's Guildhall, Abbott insisted it's strong leadership that makes a difference.

His definition of strength?

Thatcher on the Falklands, he said, "did not see an Argentine grievance to be negotiated, but a monstrous violation of British sovereignty".

No negotiation.

Fight. Fight. Fight.

He urged Europe to study Australia's experience, turning boats around and denying entry at the borders. "It will require some force," he declared.

Fight. Fight. Fight. Even against desperate refugees.

On safer ground, he urged even more force against Daesh terrorists, but even then he argued for more effective local forces on the ground:

As Margaret Thatcher so clearly understood over the Falklands, those that won't use decisive force, where needed, end up being dictated to by those who will.

Fight. Fight. Fight.

Even on domestic policy, the message was the same:

She (Thatcher) didn't see unions protecting workers so much as bullying their employers into bankruptcy.

Black and white. Fight. Fight. Fight.

To Thatcher the prime ministership wasn't about achieving consensus...

No consensus. Fight. Fight. Fight.

Abbott insisted "no country can open its borders to all comers without fundamentally weakening itself", and that Europe needed to close its borders to migrants "for the universal decencies of mankind, lest the world rapidly becomes a much worse place".

Sorry, this video has expired Dutton continues to dodge questions over boat turn backs, says Barrie Cassidy

Close the borders in the name of decency and compassion - not since George Orwell's 1984 satire has logic been so twisted.

"War is Peace", "Freedom is Slavery", "Ignorance is Strength", wrote Orwell of a new world government that had brainwashed its population.

Abbott's speech caught the attention of the British media, and most of it was negative.

The Huffington Post (United Kingdom) said the speech was so ironic you couldn't script it, and his suggestion that the borders be closed in the interests of universal decency "had many Tory ministers present wince".

If the speech was designed to lay down markers for Abbott's eventual return to the top of Australian politics, then the only winner can be Malcolm Turnbull.

Having demonstrably captured the crucial middle ground, why should Turnbull fear a campaign from Tony Abbott intent on pitching even further to the right?

Abbott's speech in the end was a missed opportunity. Why do our leaders not tell our real story when they travel abroad?

George Megalogenis in his latest book "Australia's Second Chance" topically raised the question that Australian leaders should respond to: "How did you make the world's greatest migrant nation?"

Good question. And the answer is obvious, or should be.

Megalogenis writes:

Our unique strengths are social cohesion; our ability to turn the disparate querulous cultures of the world into a unified people.

That's our story; that's the real story. It's not one that preaches hardnosed indifference to the tragedies befalling the rest of the world. It's not one that favours tough action, force if necessary, to prevent the suffering of others from spoiling our utopia, a utopia built on migration.

And it's not one - at home - that favours force and the will of a single leader over negotiation and consensus.

Barrie Cassidy is the presenter of the ABC program Insiders. He writes a weekly column for The Drum.