Why is it so wrong to air this behaviour freely? We come across these types often in our daily dealings.
Rudd was held together by one key strut: an absolute conviction of intellectual superiority over everyone else. 'Kick out that strut and he will collapse.'
The ruthless manner in which Rudd had been despatched by his own side in 2010 had laid the seeds. His successor Gillard had never explained why Rudd had been destroyed. Had she done so – invoking the tale of dysfunctional management which seeped out in any case – then Gillard might have at least partially headed off the public traction which Rudd was able to invoke later as a victim, and a prime ministerial victim moreover, unjustly dealt with.