“Canberra Matters” columnist PAUL COSTIGAN says that today being March 15, self-centred leaders need to beware the Ides of March.

IT may look as though three “CityNews” opinion writers co-ordinated their articles this week to be about the massive government changes that are altering the city for the worse for deWe didn’t. It was a beautiful piece of synchronicity, there was something in the air!

Today being the March 15, three articles in “CityNews” come as a reminder that self-centred leaders need to beware the Ides of March.

Readers who need to know three key aspects of what is wrong with this government’s handling of planning and development could get an easy answer by reading the three articles.

The first is by Michael Moore on the vague precinct proposals that if allowed to progress to reality will destroy the bush capital, the second by Jon Stanhope on the land sales exploitation by the Barr government, and its efforts to increase inequality and to drive people to buy outside the ACT, and the third, by me, focusing the failed leadership of the planning authority.

The “City in the Landscape” or “Bush Capital” will soon be a thing of the past if Chief Minister Andrew Barr’s destructive ideology has its way.

If anyone hears an owl’s hoot and if the soothsayers of “CityNews” are correct, then Andrew Barr had better watch his back as his Greenslabor colleagues may have plans for him that could come as a shock to his ego.

Julius Caesar was confident of himself, but didn’t pay attention to the Ides of March.

All autocrats have their day!