In his weekend apologia in The Australian, Tony Abbott has provided a key insight into why he failed as prime minister: he is deeply out of touch with reality.

Abbott is convinced the 2014-15 budget — a political disaster for the government that produced virtually no sound policy or fiscal improvement — is a “badge of honour”. A budget that set out to target low- and middle-income earners was, Abbott believes, “fundamentally fair” and sought to avoid “intergenerational theft”. In fact, Abbott’s denialist climate policy constitutes intergenerational theft on a vast scale.

Abbott’s political intuition also appears badly astray. He remains convinced that the budget “broke no promises”, despite a long litany of broken commitments not only in the budget, but before and after it, too.

He also claims that on national security his government “was largely successful.” In fact, Australians know that he made us less safe with his bizarre fixation with the “Daesh death cult” — 45% of voters, in the aftermath of his ousting, said that Abbott’s military intervention in the Middle East made us less safe.

Abbott plainly believes he can return to the prime ministership. Since his ouster, he and his far-right minority of cheerleaders within Liberal ranks have engaged in a Rudd-style campaign of undermining. But his attempt to explain that all was well with his government will only serve to demonstrate to his colleagues that he remains deep in denial about the profound political and personal flaws that made him Australia’s worst prime minister.