Dr James Kierstead: The importance of not being Donald

‘History doesn’t repeat,’ Mark Twain is said to have said, ‘but it often rhymes.’ And there could hardly be a better example of two events rhyming than the recent Canadian and Australian elections.

In both countries, the centre-right was flying high in the polls, with leads of up to 20% in Canada and 10% in Australia. In both countries, those leads had evaporated by the time the election took place, leading to victories for centre-left parties that had only recently been counted out. In both countries, hard-charging conservative leaders who had seemed on the cusp of becoming prime minister were instead out of parliament, having lost their seats.

What happened?