As these anecdotes illustrate, Downer never learnt the lesson of his tenure as a failed leader of the opposition. His leadership of the Liberal Party was already in strife but it was his ill-judged joke about domestic violence - "the things that batter," Downer chortled - that brought his term to a rapid end.  

He remains the only Liberal leader who never got to contest an election. Downer lacked judgment, and that lack of judgment meant he never acquired gravitas. He held high office, but at a low level. 

"He holds the record for the most unpopular opposition leader in 36 years," the life of Australia's longest-running political poll, the Nielsen poll, according to Nielsen's John Stirton.  

Even his mother couldn't pretend he was any kind of a success as Liberal leader: "It wasn't easy - of course it wasn't," Lady Downer told the journalist Annabel Crabb some years ago. "But he didn't do very well, so one must face up to that." 

Vale, Alexander The Not-So-Great