Abbott's UK trade appointment has all the hallmarks of a political circus

"A failed Australian politician who will be remembered, if at all, for believing climate change was 'probably doing good' as his country burned," was the way Nick Cohen, albeit of the leftish Observer, put it.

This is inaccurate.

Britain's future adviser on trade is also remembered there for his "budgie smugglers" - that brilliant Australianism that describes his immodest bathing gear.

He is also known to the Brits for awarding a knighthood to His Royal Highness The Prince Philip (who, you remember, once asked an Indigenous Australian: "Do you still throw spears at each other?").

Prince Philip, you might think, already had more than his fare share of titles: Duke of Edinburgh, Earl of Merioneth and Baron Greenwich, Knight of the Garter, Knight of the Thistle, Order of Merit, Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the British Empire, Companion of the Order of Australia, Companion of The Queen's Service Order, Privy Counsellor.

The extra title turned Australia's then-prime minister into the butt of some humour - "Knightmare" was the usual headline. Mr Abbott was reported to have accepted that his recommendation of the knighthood to Prince Philip was "injudicious".

But fair is fair. Britain needs a trade negotiator like a falling airman needs a parachute. And cometh the hour, cometh the ex-Australian PM.

The Downing Street spin machine has indicated that Mr Abbott would be an excellent adviser as Britain negotiates its divorce from the European Union.

All the (bad) mood music is that no deal will be reached on the trading relationship across the English Channel and Irish Sea. No deal would mean tariffs against British goods in Britain's biggest market.

Can Mr Abbott rescue the Brits from this?

He's made a start: don't look to continental Europe, just 34 kilometres away and with a market of around 350 million people, but look to Australia, 15,200 kilometres away and with a population of 25 million.

As Mr Murdoch's The Sun tabloid reported Mr Abbott as saying: "Of course, no two countries are more like-minded than Britain and Australia.

"We have a language, a set of values and a large slab of history in common."

Mr Abbott suggested that "free-trade agreements with economically advanced Commonwealth countries are the obvious place for Britain to start" - by which he presumably does not mean India.

The London-born Australian anglophile said he would be advising the British government as a "private citizen", so "I don't think there would be any requirement for Australian government approval".

Really? Would there be no concern about a former prime minister of Australia advising British negotiators about the likely bargaining position of the current Prime Minister of Australia?

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This has all the hallmarks of a political circus. Words spin in ever-faster whirls before disappearing like a fizzled-out firework, and the carnival moves on.

Mr Abbott is on a tour of the right-wing think tanks, those institutions who have done so much to set the neoliberal, free-market agenda over the last 30 years, often with the help of our very own Mr Murdoch.

Tracking Mr Abbott in London as she used to track him here in Parliament is Julia Gillard.

She, too, has a post in London, chairing the Global Institute for Women's Leadership at King's College on the Strand, opposite the Australian High Commission.

She appeared on leftish Channel 4 News on Wednesday night commenting on Mr Abbott's imminent elevation within the British establishment.

Misogyny is not dead, was her theme.

Of course, it's not true that Mr Abbott is known in Britain only for his budgie smugglers.

Ms Gillards' burning riff against him eight years ago in Parliament in Canberra is also widely known there: "I will not be lectured by this man about sexism and misogyny. I will not."

First they fought it out in Canberra. Now, they fight it out in London.

Nice work if you can get it.