Howard's end

John Howard going to a voting station in Bennelong, Saturday 24 November 2007.

For a decade Howard's power had resided in his ability to speak directly and powerfully to the great negativity at the core of the Australian soul - its timidity, its conformity, its fear of other people and new ideas, its colonial desire to ape rather than lead, its shame that sometimes seems close to a terror of the uniqueness of its land and people.

The Guardian's Richard Flanagan.