There's no love lost between Tony Windsor and his former party. But while he's previously unseated a Nationals MP, it's another thing entirely to bring down the Deputy PM, writes Annabel Crabb.

This election, it's increasingly clear, we're gonna party like it's 2010. As if anything further was required to enhance the feelings of déjà vu occasioned by federal politics right now, Tony Windsor has reappeared, and will try to recapture his former seat of New England from Deputy Prime Minister and freelance dog control specialist Barnaby Joyce.

Let me see. We have:

A new Prime Minister, settling gingerly into the seat of power, having forcibly ejected its incumbent midway through his first term. Just like 2010.

A new Prime Minister, settling gingerly into the seat of power, having forcibly ejected its incumbent midway through his first term. Just like 2010. A Prime Minister who is increasingly the second-tier story in his own administration, overshadowed by the behaviour of the predecessor, who cannot or will not accept that anything was going wrong. Just like 2010.

A Prime Minister who is increasingly the second-tier story in his own administration, overshadowed by the behaviour of the predecessor, who cannot or will not accept that anything was going wrong. Just like 2010. An open trade in tales of appalling behaviour, administrative chaos and the emasculation of Cabinet by a small group of decision makers. Just like 2010.

An open trade in tales of appalling behaviour, administrative chaos and the emasculation of Cabinet by a small group of decision makers. Just like 2010. A Prime Minister who is increasingly called upon to be himself, just like Julia Gillard in 2010 was subjected to a barrage of demands to present the charismatic, principled operator who had won such respect as leader-in-waiting.

And now: Tony Windsor returns.

Windsor is one of the most immediately recognisable faces of the two-year exercise in political hardscrabble that was the Gillard government.

Windsor and the National Party had a non-amicable split early in his career. He was a National Party candidate back in 1991 but was disendorsed, creating an enmity that has coursed as richly and deeply though his career as an unfracked subterranean stream.

He has held several governments by the privates over that career; first the government of NSW premier Nick Greiner, whom he returned narrowly to power by supporting him in the 1991 hung parliament, and from whom he pulled the rug a year or so later.

Turning to federal politics in 2001, Windsor nabbed the seat of New England from the National Party's Stuart St Clair and held it as an independent all the way through until 2013. He specialised in torturing his erstwhile conservative playmates throughout, but never so acutely as the moment when - in 2010 - he cast his vote with Julia Gillard instead of Tony Abbott.

The personal loathing between Mr Windsor and Mr Joyce is pretty much unchartable, not to mention unprintable, and this is the first opportunity they've had for a direct scuffle.

There is much thrilled speculation about whether David can take down Goliath.

A few things to remember, though:

Barnaby Joyce (blow-in, insufficiently muscular in opposition to the Shenhua mine near Gunnedah, viewed with suspicion by terrier-fanciers) goes into this fight with some handicaps.

But so does Windsor (instigator and supporter of the Gillard government, soufflé looking for a third rise, seller of his own family land to a coal mine).

Unseating Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce (a phrase to which my incredulous fingers are still adjusting) is a bigger deal than unseating a National Party oncer.

There is a reason why Goliath is called Goliath.

Annabel Crabb writes for The Drum and is the presenter of Kitchen Cabinet. She tweets at @annabelcrabb.