reverse ferret

This is a bit of politics jargon that we have picked up from the UK. The story goes that the Editor of the Sun, Kelvin McKenzie, regarded it as a duty of journalists to stick a ferret up the legs of politicians.  All he meant by this was that they should make life uncomfortable for the pollies.  The expression came from the supposed Northern England practice of sticking a ferret up your trouser leg, clipping the leg at the bottom to hold it in.  This became the competitive activity of ferret-legging where contestants would see who could hold out the longest with a ferret up their trouser leg.

So back to the Sun.  When Kelvin MacKenzie realised that the tide of public opinion had switched against the paper, he would burst out of his office shouting ‘Reverse ferret!’ This meant that the journalists now ran the opposite line, with complete disregard for what had gone before.

We have had a couple of instances of reverse ferret, described as such.  Scott Morrison was thought to have done one by declaring that his climate policy was for a net zero emissions target by 2050.   The Victorian Liberal Party has done one in deciding that they want Matthew Guy back to lead the party even though he produced a disastrous result for the Libs in the 2018 election and was unpopular for that.