Talk of Cory Bernardi’s ‘betrayal’, or of him ‘ratting out’ on his colleagues, is disingenuous twaddle at best. As we have repeatedly emphasised over the last eighteen months, ‘loyalty’ was a key brand value that the Liberal party wilfully ditched in September 2015. As with any powerful brand value, it is earned with great effort over a long time, yet trashed in seconds at enormous cost.