A carefully constructed Kevin Ruud has a media triumph over flesh-and-blood Tony Abbott

Give me Tony Abbott any time. I leave aside the tight correspondence of my moral, social and political views with those of Abbott. We are both conservative Catholics, even attended the same school, Abbott ten years later than me. No, I like Tony Abbott's open, honest character. Whatever his failings - and he is fully conscious of his natural and personal fallibility - what we all see is the real Tony Abbott. I like a person who is not too grand and self-deluded to recognise and admit it when he makes a mistake or holds a wrong opinion. I like a real person, warts and all. I am most disgusted with a person who is two-faced and never ever admits they are wrong.

I have seen many interviews with Prime Minister Ruud, and heard many on radio. What has struck me since around the time he became leader of the Labor Party is that Ruud never answers a question directly. This is in contrast with the time when he was a regular guest on the Seven Network's morning Sunrise program. I think I saw Ruud's potential before many in the media. I commented to friends at the time that he was the most impressive member of the Labor Party in the House: articulate, master of his subject, personable and confident. Long before I heard anyone else say it, I said that he was a likely future leader of the Labor Party.

After his election to the leadership Ruud began to close up. Little by little the overused tactic of public figures to give the answer they want to give rather than answer a question directly, overtook him. That process of defensively closing up and then remoulding has reached a point where he is now repackaged into a very tight, almost impenetrable media parcel. He must have an excellent media team. Indeed, it is an irony - and instructive - that media experts hit on the most effective tactic of dealing with an irritating journalist or an aggressive media scrum. The television debate this week at the National Press Club between Ruud and Abbott over Health care policy was a stunning exposition of the repackaged Ruud and the effectiveness of his media team. What little estimation I had at that point for Ruud dissolved to nothing. It was a disgustingly deceitful performance.

Even the ideologically sympathetic media recognised from the start that Ruud and an equally media-conscious and manipulative Julia Gillard (Deputy PM) ambushed Abbott in the House. They know that he is at his most vulnerable at the moment when it comes to policy. Any freshly elected leader of a political party needs time to organise his party and build policy. Okay, the challenge to a debate against an opponent who is perceived to be at his weakest is fair enough. But cynically misusing the public debate to create an impression rather than discussing the content of policy and the reasoning behind it is not. This is what Ruud was clearly doing - and not what he pretended to be doing.

Tony Abbott commented a number of times that Ruud was engaged in platitudes and sleep-inducing rhetoric which the studio audience with the redoubtable 'worm' scored badly. But he was right. From the very first words Ruud was almost all rah-rah and sentimental rhetoric about what hospitals and medical care should be for the citizen. Who could disagree with the assertion that Australian hospitals should offer the very best care for everyone right down to ordinary 'mums and dads' and 'working families'! Most of Ruud's flow was like this. The studio audience loved it. The worm soared at this empty sentimental rhetoric, as Ruud's media team knew it would. Nothing could be clearer than that Ruud Gillard and their team had carefully studied the studio reaction to past debates and had prepared Ruud's performance accordingly.

Labor Party people and the left generally must love the 'worm'. You have to think on this and past performances the worm is a Labor Party member. It's laughable. Often when Ruud began to speak, the worm rose sometimes to go off the chart. The opposite happened with Abbott. Most telling for me was that the worm took an immediate deep dive in response to Abbott's jokes. Fair enough that they were thought negative and inappropriate, but to rouse such a violent political reaction was disproportionate. It's time for the worm to be utterly discredited - meaning that the people who choose the studio audience for the worm should lose all their credibility.

I thought Tony Abbott in the circumstances did well. I would leave the flat jokes, but other than that he rose to the occasion, showed that he knew what Ruud was doing and nevertheless engaged with him, willing to accept being bloodied. He left the field with some unavoidable wounds, but throwing out a challenge to combat when it must be understood he will be far less vulnerable. It was a good to see some masculinity on display.

Ruud, Gillard and their media team will continue to generate and apply the same manipulative tactics. They will continue to deploy the argument the left has beautifully refined over the years: the argument from ridicule. Mockery and ridicule are one Gillard's most effective weapons. She does mockery and ridicule better than most of her leftist colleagues. Ruud will develop what he and his media minders obviously think is an effective media posture. This posture was on display during the debate. He acted as if Abbott was a bothersome kid, not deigning to look at him or to 'dignify' his words. I do not know how he gets away with it. A media adviser on the 7.30 Report told Kerry O'Brien that it was effective and that Abbott fell for it. I thought it transparently manipulative and arrogant - taking his audience for fools.

During the previous week Ruud acted in the same way with NSW Premier Christina Keneally who had incurred his displeasure over the hospital issue. News bulletins showed vision of him sitting at a table with Keneally, preparing for discussions. She was addressing him in an animated manner while cameras flashed. Looking bored Ruud fiddled with his paperwork, ignoring her, not even dignifying her with a look or any indication that he had heard her words. At a certain point he looked around at the media and said something like, 'Okay, are we ready to start?'

It was a pig-ignorant performance.

Comment: gerard@gerardcharleswilson.com