The first is an attempt by Conservatives to save their skins, as anger ignites over drinks parties in Prime Minister Boris Johnson's home while mere citizens dutifully obeyed the strict rules of lockdown.

Don't doubt the anger. This is not a row concocted by headline writers. In Parliament on Wednesday, the usually loyal Conservative MP David Davis told Boris Johnson: "In the name of God, go."

In the face of this rebellion, there are two alternative strategies which can be paraphrased as: "Get rid of Boris Johnson before the voters get rid of us" and "Throw the backbenchers some red meat to keep them happy."

The red meat for hardline Conservatives is tougher action on their favourite targets. This may resonate in Australia.

So no more "war on motorists": "If the Chinese have no intention of cutting carbon emissions, why the hell should we?" as Daily Mail columnist Richard Littlejohn put it.

The Royal Navy will "prevent dinghies full of illegal migrants crossing into British territorial waters. They will be returned to France, whether the French like it or not."

And bash, bash, bash the BBC, not just verbally (that's par for the course) but by cutting its budget, which is what a two-year freeze on its income does in a time of inflation.

And the most damaging cut of all: threatening to stop its public funding in five years.

The trouble with Operation Red Meat is that the public don't feel quite as beastly towards drowning migrants or the BBC as the Tory hardliners do.

The figures published by the BBC's regulator (figures rarely quoted in the overwhelmingly Tory press) show widespread trust in the national broadcaster.

Even here in Australia, the BBC comes out as the third-most-trusted source of news (after the ABC and SBS), according to a poll in 2020 for the Reuters Institute at Oxford University.

And British voters might not approve of foreigners turning up on British beaches, but they don't like the idea of leaving them to drown in the English Channel either. That doesn't accord with what they perceive as "British values".

Which brings us to the other campaign: the Pork Pie Plot. This is a wish by some Conservative backbenchers to throw Boris overboard instead.

It is apparently strongest among Conservative MPs who won in formerly solid, working-class Labour seats. The victorious MPs get dog's abuse on doorsteps over "Partygate" (every scandal has to have a "gate" at the end).

The Pork Pie Plot emanates from the parliamentary constituency of one Alicia Kearns. Her electorate includes the town of Melton Mowbray, famed for pork pies.

But everybody understands (with a knowing wink) that pork pie is rhyming slang for lie. ["Stop telling porkies" remains a well-used phrase.]

And Mr Johnson is now widely scorned for what his bosses on the newspapers which once employed him knew all along: he doesn't always tell the truth.

Worst of all, he has become a figure of fun for what his growing band of detractors see as his Trumpian attitude to truth.

The old-style, one-nation Tory (who was once Mr Johnson's editor), Sir Max Hastings, wrote of his former reporter, "He is unfit for national office because it seems he cares for no interest save his own fame and gratification.

"Tory MPs have launched this country upon an experiment in celebrity government."

The experiment has blown up in Conservative faces.

In recent weeks, Mr Johnson has seemed to play fast and loose with the truth. Pictures appear of parties, sometimes pretty good parties, with partygoers raising their glasses as they lie on the floor.

Mr Johnson apologises - sort of - and then implies he did nothing wrong.

He says he thought one gathering he attended was a work event. The invitation ended with "BYOB" - Bring Your Own Bottle.

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Two groups may be watching all this closely in Australia: those who care about the ABC as a great national broadcaster, and those who wonder if the Coalition will continue in government after May.

The Conservative hardliners' difficulty is that the BBC remains popular - just as the ABC does.

Both organisations make mistakes, but both organisations are fundamentally honest and try to tell it like it is. [Let me declare my interest: I worked for the BBC for 30 years, and have friends in the ABC.]

Operation Red Meat may work by satisfying Conservative BBC-haters (and hate is not too strong a word), but it may not work with voters. Similarly with the ABC.

But the people who run the ABC may well be looking at the BBC's fight for its life (for that's what it is) and fearing a similar death by a thousand cuts.

The spin doctors of the Coalition might also be looking at Britain for parallels. Scott Morrison is not Boris Johnson. Whatever his critics think, he does not have quite the same disregard for the truth. He may bend facts, as politicians do, but he does not seem to spout bare-faced untruth as easily as he breathes.

But being straight does matter. Trimming with the wind doesn't go undetected. A mastery of slippery language works well until people feel they're being taken for fools.

Above all, competence matters, particularly in our time of crisis. You can't spin your way out of a pandemic.

And, finally, Labour in Britain doesn't look quite so old-fashioned these days. It doesn't look like a remnant from another age. An unflashy Labour leader is back in the fight. He hasn't won yet, but the party of the right now looks beatable.

Might an unflashy Labor leader also feel a little more confident?