It truly pains me to say this, but Niki Savva was quite right (Ah! Where are those pills?) Niki Savva was quite right to criticise the Dear Leader for his bungled attempt to display the ‘common touch’.

‘Turnbull’s own actions, the miscalculations of his campaign team and the worse than expected result has meant that, for him, that critical period has been mixed,’ Savva notes, citing one instance in particular: ‘on Monday when he sat down in the Prime Minister’s office with his department head, Martin Parkinson, to get the incoming government’s brief his photo call was derailed by a little girl.’ For those who haven’t seen the footage, it’s well worth a watch.

Now, granted, there wasn’t much Mr Turnbull could do in those particular circumstances: glancing up from his iPad amidst the flashing paparazzi to find an adorable little girl-child staring at him, doe-eyed. What’s a PM to do? Call for the APS and have her dragged out in shackles? As a recovering Malcoholic I’m not averse to Turnbull’s photo ops with children, particularly when they feature his grandson Jack. But it does seem that Turnbull suffers from a malaise all too common amongst the modern political class: a rather careless disregard for protocol.

The worst offender was no doubt Ed Miliband and his bacon sandwich. I know seeing a major party leader slobbering all over your favourite hangover cure might be gratifying in theory, but it’s difficult to see what it might’ve really accomplished. True, Miliband had a hard time shaking his image as an armchair socialist. (Anyone who pronounces ‘wrong’ as ‘wong’ has never done an honest day’s work in their life, that much is sure.) But even if he cut a truly striking figure in the process, in what way did this ‘humanize’ him? Did his fiercest critics ever suspect he was incapable of shoving pork into his gob?

David Cameron tried to avoid a similar incident when, at a barbeque, he was photographed eating a hot dog with fork and knife. One can’t fault the recently unemployed British PM for his conscientiousness, but there’s no denying he looked posh. And not in the charming Ralph Lauren way – more in the pig-rogering Etonian way. If he had to use silverware at a cookout, methinks it would’ve been better not to attend the cookout at all. Again, snooty as Cameron no doubt is, I hardly think anyone imagined him of being physically incapable of inserting food into his mouth out-of-doors.

Our pollies, as usual, have a great deal to learn from the Queen. If you haven’t seen the photos already, quickly Google ‘Queen second tweet’. You’ll see a photo of our sovereign lady tapping away on an iPad, wearing a dress that cost half the GDP of Cuba, in a room built almost entirely of solid gold. There’s no hint of condescension about it whatsoever. She didn’t feel the need to put on a tracksuit and pose with Syrian refugee children as she hit the ‘Tweet’ button for only the second time in her long and storied life.

Unless you’re the sort of person that thinks queens are inherently ridiculous, there’s nothing ridiculous about that photo. If you ever imagined what a monarch browsing social media might look like, that’s probably exactly what came to mind. This is in stark contrast to David Cameron, who we’d all like to think doesn’t enjoy cutting into a greasy Frankfurt at his family’s annual sausage sizzle. Cameron tried to look normal and ended up coming across as a spaz; the Queen, in all her regal trappings, looks strangely ordinary. Just Your run-of-the-mill Majesty surfing the web, nothing to see here really.

Alternatively, they might follow the example of the late, great Baroness Thatcher. When asked by a Swedish journalist if she would ‘make a little hop’ at the end of a televised interview, the Iron Lady let her have it. ‘I shouldn’t think of it,’ she informed the journalist; ‘It’s a silly thing to ask. It’s a puerile thing to ask.’ Then, a bit later, the zinger: ‘It shows that you want to be thought to be normal or popular. I don’t have to say that, or prove it… I do not wish to lose the respect of people whose respect I’ve kept for years by doing something so absurd.’

So the next time a British PM’s aides suggest he bring a knife and fork to a barbeque, he might tell the chappie that, under those circumstances, he won’t be attending the barbeque at all. It will spare him great indignity and show true humanity – that is, it’ll show he’s capable of feeling our uniquely human emotion: shame. And the next time a photographer lets his daughter loose on an Aussie PM’s press conference, he might graciously allow said little girl to get a snap at his desk, and then politely inform the photographer that his services will no longer be required.