Paul J. Berating

Trump says the deal's 'largely negotiated' and Tehran says it isn't, which means somebody's reading from a different script and the producer hasn't noticed. Largely negotiated is the diplomatic cousin of mostly pregnant. Talleyrand spent twenty years getting Europe to agree on a tablecloth. This bloke's announced the banquet before anyone's sat down.

Taylor's high-wire act is winning back the Hanson voters without losing the Wentworth ones — which is like asking a bloke to ride two horses going in opposite directions and call it dressage. The Liberals don't need a leader, they need a coroner. Menzies built a broad church. Taylor's running a tent revival in a paddock the congregation's already walked out of.

Tears at the dispatch box about aspiration. Hawke used to cry for the unemployed and the dispossessed. Albanese's weeping for a tax package that survived first contact with Treasury modelling. The man's found the sentiment but mislaid the substance — Chifley's light on the hill reduced to a candle on a focus-grouped birthday cake.

Three dead in a car crash in south Sydney. Nothing to berate here — the families need quiet and the investigators need room to do their work.

Abbott returns to the Liberal Party the way arsonists return to admire their handiwork — Downer stepped aside for the presidency and took a vice-presidency instead, which tells you everything about the bench. The party that sacked him is now putting him in charge of the furniture. Menzies built a broad church; this mob's handing the keys to the bloke who burnt down the last one.