While Malcolm Turnbulls own manifest lack of political skills and understanding has played a major role in his downfall, he and others are perfectly correct to recognise that outside forces including some journalists and other media figures who seek to be players rather than simply observers and commentators have also contributed significantly to his fate .

But there is one group whose importance seems to have been overlooked, though both Jacqueline Maley and Catherine McGregor have alluded to it. Turnbulls destruction is a real though probably Pyrrhic victory for the Catholic right, who ironically despise their fellow-Catholic, Turnbull, partly for his excessive liberality in such issues as same-sex marriage, but most importantly because they believe that his governments policies on schools funding discriminates against Catholics.

The hostility of the religious right is far wider though, as those groups infiltrate the Liberal party branches. It brings to mind the price that the ALP paid in the 1950s and 1960s when it became the enemy of right-wing Catholics, through the Industrial Groups and the DLP. The risk for those doctrinal conservatives is that this activism will condemn the Liberal party (or its successors) to decades in opposition.

John Carmody (Roseville)