| The last time I met John Howard was at an event a few years ago, during the final churn of Australia’s runaway turnstile of prime ministers. "Ah, Mr Howard!” I said. “Our last good one!” It was a joke he got straight away. “Stop, stop!” he said, batting his hand down modestly. And then with a flickering grin: “Keep going...” Howard’s humour was one of Australia’s best kept secrets during his decades in public office. He was seen more as the stolid reliable steward of the treasury benches or as the nation’s kind but firm grandpa. But since ending his tenure as the nation’s second longest serving prime minister, Howard has increasingly been deployed as one-man charm offensive whenever the Liberals are in need. Perhaps there is a Bat-signal over Bennelong. And so it was that the Grand Old Man answered the call to walk the streets of Wentworth today, where he was mobbed by blue bloods in the once blue-ribbon seat. Despite his advancing age — he is nearing 86 — he injected some much needed energy and vigour into the Coalition’s campaign, which desperately needs a shot in the arm for the final week before polling day. INTERACTIVE: Don't know who to vote for? Election MatchMaker is here to help  CLICK HERE FOR MORE GREAT ELECTION CARTOONS And his presence in the former prime ministerial seat — which covers Sydney’s genteel eastern suburbs — speaks volumes. Like so many leafy electorates like it, Wentworth is now held by a teal independent who can afford to cater to affluent high and mighty issues like climate change and “integrity”, without having to worry about how they play out elsewhere. This has forced the Coalition to look for votes elsewhere — among outer suburban tradies for example — whose values and priorities are in some cases diametrically opposed to the teal voters they need to win back. And Howard was the last leader to be able to straddle what he called the “broad church” of the Liberal Party — dyed in the wool conservatives and cosmopolitan urban elites — as well as bringing in those outer surburban voters as well, famously dubbed “Howard’s battlers”. CLICK HERE FOR JOE HILDEBRAND'S FULL ANALYSIS | 
