It is indeed ironical that the first policy initiative of a government born in treachery and dishonour would be about the honours system. Unlike Cromwell’s ‘cruel necessity’, this coup was a human manifestation of the kleptoparasitism found among robber birds who ruthlessly take over other birds’ nests.

The only reason why the Lord Protector has the keys to the Lodge is because of Tony Abbott’s dramatic resurrection of the Liberal Party and his delivery of policies crucial to the nation. These are policies to which the Lord Protector was strongly opposed and would never have delivered. Abbott is a rarity: a statesman with the courage to fulfil the leader’s first duty, securing the borders and defending the nation. Even Europe’s celebrated conservative, Angela Merkel, is an abject failure on this.

Contrast Abbott’s strength with the Lord Protector’s reaction to the merest hint of resistance to crucial Senate voting reform. He wilted just as flowers do in high summer, even in air conditioned harbour-front mansions. His suggestion of a softer approach to the border control achieved by Abbott and his team, Scott Morrison and the brilliant General Jim Molan, was received with delight by the world’s people smugglers. Then he astounded the defence establishment by appointing a left wing republican ally as minister. Consistent with Lord Monckton’s warning that global warmists would engineer a coup, an inquiry into the ‘homogenising’ of historical temperature records was closed down, with hints our CO2 targets may be increased.

On becoming leader, Abbott was forced into what De Gaulle described as défence tous azimuts, defence in all directions. He was the subject of increasingly hysterical and often lying campaigns not only from Labor but also from an agenda-driven commentariat with a direct line to a cabal of cowards treacherously seated behind him in parliament.

The commentariat’s assessment of Abbott is, unfortunately, correct. For a Canberra politician today, his character is wanting. He has long undertaken good works, of which lifesaving and fire fighting are but examples. His sin is to perform them in private. Contrast that with the Lord Protector, whose every condescending trip on public transport is recorded by an adoring media. In addition, Abbott is intensely loyal, clearly an outdated virtue. Worse, instead of merely mouthing the words of the Lord’s Prayer, he forgives his enemies. The commentariat was never going to let him get away with this. The Lord Protector knows how media approved political behaviour should be rewarded. Every one of those treacherous plotters, all with blood on their hands, has been rewarded with status, money and titles, even one minted for the occasion. These are not titles of chivalry. The miscreants sold their souls for the glory of being, at least, an ‘assistant minister’.

Which brings us back to the Lord Protector’s first policy initiative – to remove that scourge of the commentariat, knighthoods. It’s not that politicians are against knighthoods as such; they revel in them. The only condition is that they be awarded by anybody other than the Queen to whom they regularly swear allegiance. Both the Lord Protector and the Leader of Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition have placed this at the very top of their priorities, well ahead of defence, the borders, law and order and the economy.

In this they follow the commentariat, who had decided that the minor, gracious and fully justified knighting of Prince Philip was sufficient reason to incite a coup d’état. It is extraordinary that in not one of the more than forty countries which have similarly recognised the Prince’s many achievements did anyone in the media or politics bat an eyelid. It was only in Australia. The difference is that we live under the nefarious influence of a left-wing Canberra commentariat drunk with power.

As our New Zealand cousins have recognised, knighthoods remain an internationally recognised method of acknowledging those of the calibre of our greatest general, Sir John Monash, our greatest cricketer, Sir Donald Bradman and our greatest opera singer, Dame Joan Sutherland. In addition, by mindlessly ending the award of knighthoods, the nation will be denied a most useful and costless courtesy in diplomatic exchanges with friendly powers. If knighthoods remain the highest level of the OA, but are no longer awarded, we can hardly award the second class to a foreign head of state whom we wish to honour. That would be a diplomatic insult.

If the Lord Protector, Mr Shorten and the commentariat are so outraged by Mr Shorten’s mother-in-law being addressed as ‘Dame Quentin’, the solution is simple. Do what many countries do. Keep the highest level of the order, whatever they’re called − knights, dames, chevaliers, principal officers or indeed, first mates. Abolish the titles ‘Sir’ etc., or better, make them optional. There’s a precedent. Anglican bishops usually refused the accolade − being dubbed with a sword − because this used to mean they had to bear arms for the sovereign. That upset their wives who were denied the courtesy title ‘Lady’, as well as their congregations when celibate Catholic prelates were addressed as Cardinal Sir Norman Gilroy, Sir James Duhig etc.

In the meantime, we’re told the Lord Protector is enjoying a honeymoon. While polls in several countries have recently failed, sometimes spectacularly, to predict election results, those registering the boost from the coup are all over the place, from 1 per cent by Essential, 5 per cent by Newspoll and 12 per cent by Roy Morgan. Before he said the opposite to justify his coup, the Lord Protector would often insist that the only poll to take notice of is an election. He was right; just look at the Canning by-election. Pre-coup internal Liberal polling indicated the seat would be held by up to 57 per cent. So if there were a honeymoon, the Liberal vote would have been higher. At 55.28 per cent, it was lower. In other words, there has been no honeymoon at all. Except, of course, in the minds of the adoring commentariat.

It was always likely that the coalition would be returned at the next election. This is still probable, absent a serious recession. In such a case a PM who claims such economic expertise would no doubt be held to account. In the meantime, rank-and-file Liberals continue to be outraged by those treacherous and opportunistic politicians who like cockroaches have inserted themselves into the party founded by Sir Robert Gordon Menzies.They will not be forgiven. Expect that the rank-and-file will organise themselves to take back and to restore their party.