Can social media damn your career when you’re already 66? It might just be so in the case of Alexander John Gosse Downer.

The left-wing media have been quick to put the boots into the former foreign minister, our man not that long returned from London and father of the sacrificial lamb the South Australian Liberals threw on the bonfire of the ballot papers that was the Mayo by-election (result – obvious to blind Freddy the moment it was called), Georgina, simply for gallantly exercising his paternal position to defend his daughter against Facebook foes.