This morning the headlines are screaming that "Federal Labor is in disarray over its opposition to the death penalty for terrorists". Interesting, that little qualifier 'for terrorists'. I wasn't aware there were suddenly different categories of death penalty. What about death being the great leveller and all that?

I am fiercely, unconditionally, eternally against the death penalty in all its forms, for any crime, in any country. It's bitterly ironic that, on the one issue where Kevin Rudd is showing some consistency, he's being made to look like a squirmer.

Stick to your guns, Kruddy, and back your minister McClelland. Give us a reason to believe that there are some issues on which you are unable to compromise - that there's an iota of ideological difference between you and Howard.

As the great Tony Benn once said, "be a signpost, not a weathervane".