Former foreign minister Alexander Downer's three-year term is all but up as our high commissioner in London. And the prospect of Attorney-General and Senate leader George Brandis replacing him at Australia House once Parliament rises for the southern winter has our power expats in the UK capital rather keyed up.
Exhibit A: Barclay's chairman John McFarlane. The Scotsman who preceded Mike Smith as chief executive of ANZ Banking Group wrote to Malcolm Turnbull last month urging him not to put Brandis in Stoke Lodge. It's one thing having a quiet word in the ear of the colonial governor but another entirely to put one's Mont Blanc to one's Smythson personalised stationery and sending a pageboy all the way to Point Piper! But hey, desperate times…
The Liberal Party's London-based former federal director Sir Lynton Crosby is also believed to have muttered a few choice words to the Prime Minister on the matter during his last visit to the outlying provinces.
Downer's reign may have represented a high point but in the end, if Brandis gets tapped, he'll do just fine. To paraphrase Irving Berlin, anything Mike Rann can do, the monkey from Raiders of the Lost Ark can do better.
