Call up Google and search Australian pages for the expression “don’t you know who I am?” and you’ll get first screen references to a disgraced former Big Brother housemate and scandal-mired NSW education Minister John Della Bosca.

It’s a sadly accurate commentary … the sort of loud-mouthed, air-headed, self-regarding bozos likely to be drawn to faux-celebrity television have more than a little in common with a certain type drawn, ego-first, to the political life. That said, you have to ask how it is that someone, and we’re talking about Mrs Della Bosca here, whose ostensible calling is community service, could also be the sort of person to wantonly sink the slipper during a suburban soccer friendly and be conspicuous for bad and loud-mouthed behaviour in any nightclub called Iguanas? It’s all too sordid. Do we get the thuggish party-machine bullies we’re prepared to pay for?

Do our internal political processes encourage a certain inclination to the well-presented sociopath? Can’t we just vote them off? Oh! Yes we can.