Julia Gillard, “plausible deniability” and the veracity of the nudge and the wink

There is part of me that is very cynical about politics and those who play the power game, but also I find the tension between how the players try to depict the things they do and what has been done rather amusing. When it comes to the most high powered examples of this there are none better than the political assassination of Kevin Rudd by Julia Gillard. Now I missed last night’s Four Corners program (reception issues) but it was not hard to get the gist of its revelations from this morning’s chatter in the media, for example this from Fairfax’s Phil Coorey:

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Of course her staff planned for the coup and you can bet that not a single word was written down about such planning either, its all about being able to maintain the public fiction that Gillard was thrust into power by the necessity of the circumstances. To provide what the yanks call “plausible deniability” Gillard’s staff would have bent over backwards to keep from actaully saying the words “we are ready for you to shed Rudd’s blood with the right  victory speech.” But You can be sure that there was enough “nudge, nudge, wink, wink, SAY No Moooreee” stuff going on that both staff and their  mistress knew the score to the last decimal point.

Entirely unsurprised Comrades