Unstoppable momentum. While recently elected Liberal state president Mal Brough is maintaining the rage by declaring he will not join the new party, Brendan Nelson and federal director Alan Stockdale can now be heard denying the presidency will prove a deal-breaker. Springborg has thus emerged with greatly enhanced prestige at the head of a united conservative force without precedent in Queensland history, facing a fourth-term Labor government whose old road is rapidly agein’. — Poll Bludger

Conservative takeover complete. Even though this change is driven first and foremost by the need to rebrand the non-Labor side of politics in an effort to make them more marketable, the fact that it has led to an outcome where hardline conservatism is even more dominant in the new party is also significant.– Andrew Bartlett

“Modernised” Joh style Queenslandism. In Queensland, of course, the political traditions and electoral and social geography of the state make both the free market strand and the social liberals very much minority constituencies, and there’s no doubt they will now be swamped by the social conservatives and the agrarian socialists within the LNP. — Larvatus Prodeo

Same old Nats. Queensland Nationals leader Lawrence Springborg may like to say the LNP is a new conservative force, but they’re basically just the same old Queensland Nats. From that it is hard to see how they are now better placed to take on Bligh’s government. The creation of the LNP has come at the expense of that wing of the coalition that was more acceptable in Brisbane, the Liberals, so it would seem to leave Labor in a better position than before. — The Piping Shrike