The 2007 Federal Election

Election night dinners, not always celebratory, are becoming something of a tradition.

Above are the two wine labels for tonight's dinner.

John Howard, Prime Minister and leader of the Liberal Party (centre right) is widely considered to have made a mistake in not retiring last year and leaving on a high. He stayed on to fight another election. He has shown himself to be very adept at pulling a rabbit out of the hat. His two main pet rabbits are fear and greed.

Kevin Rudd came to the leadership of the Labor Party (centre left) last November and has been favoured in the polls ever since. Got called a show-off by the Government when he spoke to the visiting Chinese president in Mandarin. (Mind you, he would have been called a phoney if he hadn't.) Some astute person kept a video of him, taken many years before he became leader, sitting in parliament picking the wax out of his ear and appearing to eat it.

The dinner itself will start with an assortment of dips and crackers, symbolic of the types of people who run for public office in this country.

Main course will, naturally enough, be roast pork, symbolic of the pork barrelling that has been evident from both sides of politics. It will be served with carrots and wedges, both also highly evident over the course of the campaign.

Greens will be on the side.

Dessert will be coconut mousse with fresh mango. The reasons being that Kevin Rudd, the 'fresh face' of Australian politics, is from Queensland, home of the mango in Australia, and John Howard was famously described as a dessicated old coconut by Paul Keating, a former prime minister.

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