The Australian 24 January 2011
It’s generally agreed these days that politicians are very busy people, and I do imagine that trying to maintain the illusion that you’re on top of things while plotting against your various enemies and having meetings and press conferences and working out what lies you can get away with at interviews and such would suck up a lot of time better used playing Farmville.
After a couple of  years as Tasmanian premier, David Bartlett, who seems a nice enough chap as long as you don’t take anything he says too seriously, has chucked it in. The word is that next in line (TBA this morning) is his deputy Lara Giddings, who seems to be an equally nice lady apart from a tendency to enunciate as though she’s attempting to explain quadratic equations to a particularly backwards kindergarten class.
This being Tasmanian politics, no doubt there’s more to the story, but compared to Julia’s removal of Kevin from his job last year it all seems positively civilised. With a state of the state address just down the track, things might come a bit clearer, but perhaps it is just a bloke wanting to spend more time with his kids, though as someone who works from home I’d be quite happy with a few weekends away from the little buggers now and then myself*.
*mostly not true
How do they manage to say ” to spend more time with my family’ with a straight face. It is usually a euphemism for “no one in my party thinks I am any good’ or ‘I have done something really naughty and it might come out soon’ or “I have a rather nasty illness I don’t want made public” But can’t they think of something more original to say,,,