This is the story of one of the most extraordinary episodes in recent Australian political history, of how a powerful media pack, a vicious commentariat and some of those within her own party conspired to bring down Australia's first woman prime minister. 'Don't write crap. Can't be that hard. And when you have written complete crap, then I think you should correct it.' - Julia Gillard. Julia Gillard took the reins of the Australian Labor Party on June 24, 2010; she did so with the goodwill of the majority of her party and a fawning Canberra press gallery at her feet. The man she supplanted, Kevin Rudd, led an isolated band of angry Labor voices at this surprising turn of events; the collective political and media verdict was that his time, short though it had been, was up. Gillard allies say Rudd started planning for his return to the prime ministership within days of the removalists stacking up the Rudd furniture and trappings and shifting them out of The Lodge. By the time Gillard announced in February 2011 that her government would introduce a carbon pricing scheme, Rudd and his small team of malcontents were in lock-step with key Canberra and interstate journalists in a drive to push her out of the prime ministerial chair. A year after her ascent, the undercurrent was so poisonous that Gillard had become a politician fighting a ludicrous battle against a man who had been removed from office because he was incapable of governing, who was despised by the overwhelming majority of caucus colleagues, and whose return would plummet the government into the same chaotic state that had prompted his removal. Once deposed, Rudd's toxic ambition appears to have been either to either return to the leadership, or destroy the government that had dumped him and the woman who had replaced him. In this pursuit he was abetted by political journalists who became pawns in Rudd's leadership games, channeling the Chinese whispers of his spruikers and giving credibility and substance to exaggerated claims about the pretender's level of support within the parliamentary party for a comeback. This is the story about one of the most extraordinary episodes in recent Australian political history. It focuses on Team Rudd and the media's treatment of their slow-death campaign of destabilisation, with its disastrous effect on Gillard and the government's functioning. This account is about a politician who was never given a fair go; not in the media, not by Rudd, not by some in caucus. Never has a politician been so assiduously stalked. Cast as a political liar and policy charlatan, she was also mercilessly and relentlessly lampooned for her hair, clothes, accent, her arse, even the way she walks and talks. Rudd, on the other hand, could barely do any wrong. His antics were afforded benign, unquestioning prime-time media coverage.