All of this is gripping for the reader, but make no mistake: even if every one of those missteps had been avoided, Labour would still have lost.
Tony Abbott is prime minister elect, despite his missteps relating to Scott's sex appeal, his "not-bad-looking" daughters, and wondering if Rudd ever shuts up.
Questions about squad rotation, tactics, front office missteps and more have persisted throughout the entire season but at present only one question looms large: Are the Fire actually getting hot at the right time?
The past three weeks has been characterised by strategic missteps and by damaging internal leaks about Cabinet tensions.
Julia Baird, author of Media Tarts: How the Australian Press Frames Female Politicians, said Gillard had been plagued by the question that has haunted women leaders throughout modern times: "Are they interlopers in a man's world?" "Her errors have been perceived as more grave, her missteps as potentially fatal, struggles sometimes as catastrophic crises.
Over more than 6,000 highly detailed words, Wintour relayed the confessions of Labour's inner circle on the missteps and blunders that took them to disaster on 7 May.
It's true that Wall Street banks are less risky animals than they once were; they have much more capital on their books, meaning that big missteps like those that led up to the financial crisis of 2008 are less likely to recur.
While David Fincher's Facebook origins story The Social Network won big, there have been bad missteps, from Hideo Nakata's Chatroom (online conversations were clumsily brought to life) to Jason Reitman's Men, Women and Children (which played out like a public service bulletin about the dangers of even thinking about Wi-Fi).
"In all seriousness, though, the secret service request will come under tough scrutiny given our nation's rapidly increasing debt and the agency's numerous missteps over the past several years".
This has not been a flaw-free season – there have been some (much discussed) plot missteps and it's hard not to feel that a slightly longer season would have allowed for more relaxed storytelling and solved some of the pacing issues – but when Game of Thrones gets it right few other shows can touch it.
Erdogan on a roll Four more years The moisture down below Trading places ReprintsSuch missteps aside, Europe's nervousness about the emergence of China has abated of late.
