John Major's 'put up or shut up' challenge to Tory right and wars between Tony Blair and Gordon Brown playing out in Australia
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Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard are providing a masterclass in how to alienate voters. Photograph: Daniel Munoz/REUTERS
Tony Blair has been out of office for so long – five years in June – that his supporters are now able to laugh off his battles with Gordon Brown. But at the time their daily, even hourly, battles felt like regular nuclear strikes, according to those involved.
What seemed like a titanic struggle over the direction of public service reform and Britain's place in Europe was a minor playground skirmish compared with the battle playing out in the Australian Labor party.
This will finally come to a head on Monday when Kevin Rudd, who resigned as foreign minister in an early morning press conference in Washington earlier this week, challenges the prime minister Julia Gillard.
The best British comparison is with Sir John Major's "put up or shut up" challenge to the right wing eurosceptic "bastards" in his cabinet in 1995. Major resigned as Tory leader, though not as prime minister, to trigger a leadership contest. In the end John Redwood, who was too junior to be in Major's sights at the time of his "bastards" outburst in 1993, was the only minister with the guts to resign and challenge a sitting prime minister.
Rudd appears to have pre-empted a move against him by resigning while abroad. Gillard moved quickly and called a leadership ballot of Labor's parliamentary caucus in Canberra on Monday. She will be hoping that the abrasive Rudd, who is loathed by many Labor colleagues, will struggle to build his support in the 103-strong caucus. It is thought Rudd has around 30 supporters.
Pity John McTernan, one of the smartest brains during the New Labour years in Britain, who is Gillard's director of communications. McTernan, who had a ringside seat for the denouement of the Blair / Brown battle as the No 10 political secretary between 2005-2007, needs no reminding of the corrosive effect of internal party battles.
Many Labor figures are weeping. The Australian economy is performing well, unemployment is falling and the opposition centre right Liberal Party is led by the pugilistic Tony Abbott who repels many mainstream voters.
And yet Labour is tearing itself apart. The problem for Gillard, who overthrew Rudd as prime minister in 2010 in a palace coup, is that she lacks gravitas. This may be unfair because she is implementing progressive reforms in the face of strong opposition from Abbott. She is, for example, aiming to restore the Australian budget to a surplus by cutting the rebates higher tax payers receive for their health insurance contributions.
Rudd has plenty of gravitas and is a towering intellectual figure in Australia. But he shares what might be politely described as Gordon Brown's people management skills.
The Labor party hopes that Monday's contest will end the long running Rudd / Gillard soap opera. This will happen if Rudd wins because Gillard will retire to the backbenches and renounce any future claims to the premiership.
But if Rudd loses – but shows he has a reasonable level of support – then the soap opera will continue as he assesses whether to mount a challenge in the future.
Gillard, who was born in Barry in South Wales, may then feel she is reliving the experiences of both Major and Blair. A weak prime minister would limp on with a major figure waiting to pounce.