Nick Cave, the coolest person in the chapel at the recent Royal nuptials, admits that in his younger punk years he liked to mess with people’s minds.

The gifted singer-songwriter, lead man for the Bad Seeds, didn’t use the word mess, but the F-word, telling UnHeard podcast host Freddie Sayers that he differed from his punk peers because he was more interested in infuriating the public than bucking “against the establishment”.

“I didn’t have that political fury,” he said. “But I was much more concerned with f***ing with people on a different kind of a level, a different kind of thing.”

He said that by irritating people he had wanted to “sort of ignite their imaginations, and get them thinking about things and challenge them about things and this sort of stuff”.

So, he was asked, how did he mess with people’s heads these days, 50 years into his brilliant career.

“You be a conservative,” he replied.

“Yeah, you go to church and be a conservative.”

Welcome to the modern conservatives, who have discovered a pathway to not only infuriate the Left but to challenge the belief that anybody who does not share their pursed-lipped dogma is either irrelevant or barking mad.

Former Labor Prime Minister Paul Keating once described the federal Coalition as the “punishers and straighteners”, and certainly the execution of the disgraceful robodebt scheme fulfils that brief.

But now, in western society, it is the Left – and not just the rabid, Marxist Left – who can be seen as punishers and straighteners.

Those who live out so-called conservative values, and dare to speak their name, are insulted and treated not just as a joke, but as a threat to the greater good. They are finding novel, unexpected ways to push back.

It may explain the continuing downward trajectory of support for the voice referendum, with all major polls showing it is headed for rejection by Australian voters.

Many may see the referendum as an opportunity to lodge a protest vote against what they feel are “elites” pursuing lofty agendas far removed from the increasingly grim economic and social realities of suburban life.

The Premier’s office vehemently denies the party had any role in McBride going rogue. It was the ‘dark forces’, you see.

Across Europe, far-Right parties are doing good business at the polling booths.

Exploring this, Roger Boyes wrote in The Times this week that while the European trends can’t be lumped together one thing is clear: “Middle-class voters everywhere are becoming more hard-nosed, less sentimental about grand visions and more demanding that government leads the way to economic recovery.”

“They have become fearful about their futures,” he argues.

Two weeks ago, Nick McBride, who holds the state seat of MacKillop in the south-east, quit the Liberal Party to sit as an independent, joining a growing conga-line of Liberals who’ve spat the dummy.

As InDaily’s Thomas Kelsall reported, he blamed “dark forces” within the Liberals for his decision.

Nobody with half an ear on SA politics was the least bit surprised that McBride took his bat and ball and stomped off to the cross benches, joining other ex-Liberals Fraser Ellis, Speaker Dan Cregan and Troy Bell.

From the day he entered parliament in 2018, the guy had ‘independent’ written all over him.

He appears to have been suckered by Labor into believing that the anonymous and now notorious Upset Unionist email that predicted he would quit the party, and was being wooed for a ministry in the Malinauskas Cabinet, was the work of factional enemies within his own party.

Certainly, the generously-funded spin department in the office of Premier Peter Malinauskas has worked very hard pushing that line to journalists.

I still don’t buy it. But it looks like McBride swallows it hook, line and sinker.

But who, or what, are these so-called “dark forces” roaming the streets and by-ways of sleepy South-East towns after dark, like the Four Horseman of the Apocalypse?

Brace yourselves. It’s the Christians. Not just any old Christians, but Pentecostal Christians.

McBride’s decision to go rogue came soon after key leadership positions in his MacKillop branch were won by active Pentecostal Christians.

InDaily reports that while he says these are not the “dark forces” that have spooked him, it would seem to an innocent observer that this is precisely what he’s talking about.

He said that for four years he had a loyal team but two weeks before his move “there were forces there, factions there that came in and said ‘nope, they’re not good enough, you don’t represent what we’re looking for, we’re moving in’.”

“All I would say is the Liberal membership is controlled by factionalism, and the way it’s described as dark or factionalism is it’s always on the quiet, it’s always in the background,” he said. “It’s not in the day or light.”

The subplot here is a push by prominent conservative SA Liberals, including Senator Alex Antic and federal Liberal MP Tony Pasin, whose seat of Barker overlaps Mackillop, to sign up healthy numbers of Pentecostal or Evangelical Christians in key Liberal branches.

It’s been under way for some time and the earth has yet to open up and swallow anyone.

Why would your average, God-fearing, Bible-toting Pentecostal Christian be bothered?

Is it possible that a significant section of the SA community has a problem with the direction being taken by the party, and the parliament, on a raft of social issues, from full-term abortions to voluntary euthanasia and state-sponsored suicide, to pluck just a few at random?

We live in a democracy. If you want to bring about change, you need to get involved. And if you have what are quaintly called “traditional values”, the Liberals are a good starting point.

Late last week, Labor’s Treasurer Stephen Mullighan wheeled himself out for the cameras to warn about a visit to SA by exiled Victorian Liberal MP Moira Deeming.

Deeming was sent to the political gulag by her Victorian leader for speaking at a Let Women Speak rally. The rally was gate-crashed by dopey neo-Nazis, without Deeming’s knowledge or support in any way.

She has been invited to speak at the AGM of the SA Liberal Women’s Council, hardly a subversive outfit in anyone’s book.

The ALP went bunta about it on Twitter while Mullighan warned that the Deeming visit flagged “the right is out to attack the remainder of the SA Liberals”.

With SA heading towards a $37 billion state debt, you’d think the Treasurer might have other things to worry about.

Perhaps he and his colleagues should invite Deeming to one of their many Caucus love-ins. Maybe, as Nick Cave argues, she might mess with their heads, “ignite their imaginations, and get them thinking about things and challenge them”.

Former Liberal MP Nicolle Flint, a smart conservative voice, fired back on Twitter that apparently Labor and Mullighan “can’t understand why SA Libs like me & Women’s Council support women’s rights to free speech & women like @MoiraDeemingMP who stand up for women & girls rights to female-only bathrooms, sport, rape & DV support services, jails etc. Peak Labor.”

Deeming chipped in: “Aww, doesn’t it just warm your heart to see Labor MPs care about their political opponents? I’m SURE they only want to help the Libs do better, so we’ll win the next election. I’m SURE there’s no ulterior motive in pitting Liberals against each other.”

Correct. Labor in SA has enjoyed decades in power, in no small part by pitting Liberal against Liberal, by sowing doubt and paranoia. And, to be fair, too many Liberals have too often been only too happy to be sucked in.

The Premier’s office vehemently denies the party had any role in McBride going rogue. It was the “dark forces”, you see.

But does anyone else find it funny that a seat named after Australia’s first and only Catholic saint, Blessed Mother Mary MacKillop, has been taken over by Christians?

Just imagine how terrible it would be if, like me, they were card-carrying Catholics. Say three Hail Marys and pass the Holy Water.

Matthew Abraham is InDaily’s political columnist. Matthew can be found on Twitter as @kevcorduroy. It’s a long story.