Michelle Grattan on the "fractured and self-indulgent" Liberal Party
Grattan on Friday: If defeat comes, what then for the Liberals' succession? The conservatives’ strategy is to reap what victories they can while Malcolm Turnbull leads. Dean Lewins/AAP Michelle Grattan , University of Canberra If the Turnbull government’s present agonies become death throes and the election is lost, coping with opposition will test to its very core a Liberal Party that in power has been fractured and self-indulgent. For a start, would the conservatives, who at the moment have an ideological mortgage over the party despite moderates holding some key cabinet posts, be able to foreclose and, if so, with what consequences? It’s almost two years since a widely hailed moderate prime minister overthrew a conservative one. Yet in many areas Malcolm Turnbull has not been able to assert his authority over the party. Instead, he has been forced to, or chosen to, accommodate the right’s demands and embrace senior conservatives as his closest ministerial con