From the Crikey grapevine, the latest tips and rumours …

Target Mirabella. Former Coalition frontbencher Sophie Mirabella was jostled by a post-budget mob of angry protesters during a lecture on Australian politics at the University of Melbourne (she’s a public policy fellow there) and had to be rescued by security staff and escorted from the room, clearly shaken. You can watch the footage here. Come on, people — Mirabella is not even in government, and physically intimidating anyone like this is counterproductive. Protest all you want, but keep your hands off MPs (and former MPs). That should go for Gillard (remember the shoe incident?), for Julie Bishop, for Mirabella. What do others think? Post your view in the comment thread on Tips online.

Military pension anger. A tipster reckons the Coalition has pulled the wool over people’s eyes on how military super pensions are indexed:

“Big fanfare in March 2014 with Coalition announcing the changes to military super pensions (e.g. DFRDB) indexation arrangements from the normal CPI indexation to ‘align with age and veteran pension indexation arrangements’ that are normally indexed in line with male AWOTE [average weekly ordinary time earnings]. Really deceitful because at the same time they were crowing about their generosity to the vast majority of retired military individuals, they were drafting the budget that CUTS the age and vets pensions indexation arrangements to align with CPI not AWOTE. How deceitful it that!”

To put that in laywoman’s terms, the tipster is claiming that the Coalition made a big fuss about changing the way military personnel’s pensions are indexed to be more generous, then in the budget the government quietly changed back to the old system. And we thought Tony Abbott was selling himself as the soldiers’ friend.

March in May. Yesterday protesters took to the streets for March In May — the more focused cousin of the March in March event. Adelaide, Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane all managed respectable turnouts, although 90 minutes of pre-march speeches thinned out the Brisbane crowd pretty fast. By all reports, the crowds were diverse — hardly the mob of “ferals revolting” as reported in The Daily Telegraph. The signs and placards were equal parts outraged and witty. Here are some of our faves, gleaned from social media:

(Melbourne, via @thecrossy)

(Melbourne, via Mitch Alexander)

(via @drspacejunk)

(via icantdrawgood.tumblr.com)

Missing: one Dennis Shanahan. Every Newspoll in The Australian, out rolls Dennis Shanahan, regular as clockwork, to put the best possible spin on the result for the Coalition. Well, today’s Newspoll is an undeniable disaster for Tony Abbott — and there’s no sign of Shanahan. He’s written not a word on the poll crash-and-burn. That task has been left to the Oz’s Canberra bureau chief Phil Hudson, who plays a straighter bat than Shanahan. Ms Tips’ Murdoch sensors were tingling. Perhaps this poll result was just too terrible for Shanahan to swallow …

No, it turns out; Shanahan has gone on holidays. Shanahan leaves our shores, Coalition plummets in the polls … coincidence?

Abbott on the nose. A Crikey reader snapped this pic of a sign nailed to a tree in the NSW electorate of Paterson. The photographer reckons pensioners put up the sign. Good to see the over-65s getting into the revolutionary spirit.

*Heard anything that might interest Crikey? Send your tips to boss@crikey.com.au or use our guaranteed anonymous form