Mutiny in the ranks is a common political problem and this week's usurping in the Liberal Party's ranks was, feasibly, a long time coming. What Turnbull does with his slim margin of support remains to be seen, with several political commentators suggesting that he too will be subject to a bit-by-bit whittling away of his authority from within. So in the spirit of good-sportsmanship (we like a robust democracy and god-knows the Liberals need some propping up) we've put a couple of examples together of good mutinies for Turnbull to take note of.

This is how you do it.

Henry VIII Vs Clement VII

Henry VIII was an ambitious fellow, a bit like our Malcolm you could say although he did have the advantage of receiving great wealth and power from daddy. Any way it was about the time that his wife Catherine was failing to deliver on the promise of a son that Henes got to thinking he should get a new wife (one he'd been preparing earlier with several illegitimate sons). There was a technicality at this point because England was still under the influence of Rome and the rules in the Catholic Guidebook didn't look too favourably on the notion of divorce. Pope Clement was keen to keep the favour of England and attempted to delay proceedings of the divorce hearing. But Henry's mind was already made up and he pretty much selected the Archbishop of Canterbury and set about outlawing everything Rome, and prohibiting cash-flow to Rome which pissed them right off. A successful mutiny, Henry told Clement to go jump, married his mistress, divorced his wife and started up a new church A.K.A The Anglican Church or Church of England. Of course the several thousand miles between him and his opponent helped too.

Stalin Vs Trotsky

Communism was going along just fine after Lenin and his Bolsheviks successfully staged their revolution of 1917. But then Lenin had to die and quite inconsiderately, failed to officially name a successor. This left the two most senior and influential personalities in the Communist Party, Stalin and Trotsky to battle it out. Stalin was the more convinced of his right to the leadership and successfully marginalised Trotsky, who childishly continued to oppose Stalin even after he was elected. Stalin's answer was to politely escort Trotsky to the border and assure him that he was no longer welcome in Mother Russia. Now, you've got to give Trotsky some credit because he kept right on yapping about how crap Stalin's version of Communism was, even all the way from Mexico. So Stalin had him assassinated.

Although these examples are very much abridged, we had fun trying to draw tenuous links from history towards events in Canberra this week. If you have any examples of successful mutiny's Turnbull might like to consider please add them below.