With the excellent Better Call Saul finally reaching its conclusion, I’ve been taking the time to re-watch (again) progenitor Breaking Bad, easily the most significant television show since Twin Peaks. At its heart, Breaking Bad is a story of hubris: the arrogance that leads inexorably to downfall.
On re-watch, it’s clear from the start that Walter White is arrogant to a fault. That hubris means that he is unable to stop, even when he’s reached his proximate goal: making enough money to provide for his family after his cancer diagnosis.
Victorian premier Daniel Andrews is not unlike Walter White.
There’s the arrogance, the vindictiveness, the predilection for dealing out violence (although, to damn him with faint praise, Walter at least metes out his own violence, rather than relying on henchmen like the Victorian Police to crack heads for him) — and the absolute refusal to admit when it’s time to let go.
(It might also be said that Victorians are like the hapless Jesse Pinkman: helplessly, tar-baby-like, locked in a brutal symbiosis with the Boss.)
Spectator writer Ross Eastgate likens Andrews to former Queensland Labor premier, Peter Beattie.
Beattie perfected the mea culpa when you weren’t actually having a mea culpa, which sounds something like, ‘I’m premier, it’s all my fault, I take full responsibility and I apologise, so move along now, nothing further to see here!’
Not that he and his deputy, Jim Elder, were averse to leaving a few bodies on the steps of the forum, as they say […]
The one thing Beattie did understand was when to step aside. You can only absorb so much blame, and those who ignore the lessons of history are bound to repeat them.
Andrews seems not to have grasped this, with his sights set on a more than possible third term as Premier of Victoria.
Spectator Australia
The latest of the seemingly endless political scandals to engulf Andrews may be the straw that breaks the camel’s back in Victoria. Even Victorians’ legendary gluttony for punishment may at last be wearing thin. Even resolute StandWithDan backers like The Age are talking about at best a minority government. (The only thing keeping Andrews at all politically viable is the wet uselessness of the Liberal opposition.)
But is Dictator Dan sniffing even worse on the wind?
Certainly, a great many of his colleagues seem to: a host of Labor’s most senior ministers and MPs have suddenly quit or announced their retirement ahead of the next election. It’s almost like they know something.
In response, Andrews has elevated Jacinta Allan to the deputy premiership (coincidentally, violating Vic Labor’s own rules on having a leader and deputy from the same faction, in this case, the Socialist Left).
Jacinta Allan is widely tipped to become Victoria’s next Labor premier, but you won’t hear her admit it.
The Age
Who’d want the poisoned chalice, after all?
Especially someone tainted by some of Andrews’ biggest failures. Including the billions-over-budget and long-delayed transport infrastructure projects that are choking Melbourne’s freeway network. Allan was also responsible for closing the NSW border at the height of the summer tourism period.
Daniel Andrews may not know when to go, but one thing is certain: he’ll leave behind him a state in ruins.