Malcolm Turnbull and ill-fated former Labor leader Mark Latham share certain characteristics: a touch of brilliance, strong performances in parliament and some fatal character flaws. Like Latham, history and the electorate may still judge that Turnbull came to the leadership of the Liberal Party too early.

Labor’s policy on Afghanistan has consistently been that Australia’s presence there, rather than Iraq, represents our commitment to fighting al-Qaeda and the Taliban at “the coalface”. But the promises Labor made while in Opposition are forcing our troops into a long fight that will test even the might of the United States.

This week was a week of number twos on a variety of fronts. In the US, Joe Biden became Barack Obama’s new sidekick, while in Australia, the minor parties in the Senate geared up to take on their new roles as second fiddles. Meanwhile, in the entertainment world, ‘Stargate Atlantis’ was cancelled and replaced by ‘Stargate Universe’.

In the last couple of years of the Howard government, the Labor Party set up a special unit to research and plan the best way of dealing with the possibility of Peter Costello assuming the prime ministership. And though it proved redundant, it was nevertheless an interesting case study in political campaigning.