Andrew Peacock copped a lot of flak in his 28 years in politics: ‘All feathers and no meat’, said the Bulletin magazine in an article headed ‘The Hollow Man’; ‘A soufflé doesn’t rise twice’, quipped Paul Keating in 1989 on Peacock’s regaining of the Liberal leadership; ‘A suntan in search of substance’, was a parliamentary interjection; ‘It was never clear just what Peacock believed in and what he stood for – a weakness that offset the advantages of intelligence, charm, and apparent self-possession’, was the Errington/van Onselen conclusion about Peacock in their book on John Howard; ‘Narcissus with a sun-tan...