Loner: Inside a Labor tragedy
Bernard Lagan’s book, Loner: Inside a Labor tragedy is chewing through the column inches. I have yet to buy a copy, let alone read it. Yet, with the amount that has been written, I feel I know it.
Margo Kingston has Senator Faulkner’s speech from the book launch. It was thoughtful, considered, and well worth reading. But then I am a sucker for the finely crafted speech, and this one was superb.
I know that to follow custom I should stand up here and say how much I enjoyed reading this book. I’m sorry, Bernie. I have to honestly say that I did not enjoy reading this book one little bit.
It’s not that the book is bad. The opposite! In fact, it was because the book so sharply describes some of Federal Labor’s most difficult days that I found it such a profoundly depressing read. Why, I wondered, couldn’t we have had a chronicler who dulled the agony with numbing detail and tedious prose?
There are far too many gems to deal with them all. One throw away line that particularly tickled me was Faulkner’s prediction Loner would do well in the market place. Possibly because “Labor’s history sell better than those about the conservatives. Of course, it may simply be because tragedies sell better than farce.”
Another was Faulkner’s coded warning on Latham’s own soon-to-be-published diaries.
Diaries are like that: they reflect the opinions, the blind spots and biases of those who keep them. Historians using diaries as sources should be aware that they are no more accurate or truthful than the person making the entry. Even Henri Petain, hardly a paradigm of virtue himself, said that to write a memoir “is to speak ill of everybody except oneself”.
Or to quote Bridget Jones, “Everyone knows diaries are just full of crap.”
Over at the SMH Peter Hartcher gets stuck into the subject.
Everything Mark Latham has done since losing last year’s federal election has vindicated the electorate’s decision to reject him.
Now he has again given aid and comfort to John Howard by petulantly and vindictively disparaging the party that trusted him with its highest office.
In fact, his latest comments are so puerile and show such total lack of self-reflection that anyone reading them can only feel Australia dodged a bullet in deciding not to elect him prime minister.
In the Age, Michelle Grattan and Misha Schubert examine the fall-out for Beazley. Apparently Latham described Labor as “beyond repair”, and Beazley as a “stand-for-nothing” leader. This prompted Harry Quick, a Tasmanian backbencher, to call publicly for strong leadership and a better candidate to replace Beazley. According to Grattan and Schubert,
Although the numbers are not there to replace Mr Beazley, Mr Latham’s bitter attack has reinforced the anger of the old Latham group in the caucus, who feel done down by last week’s reshuffle.
In the Australian, Steve Lewis and Brad Norington reflect on Faulkner’s harshest criticisms, directed to the toxic culture of the NSW Labor machine and its impact on the young Latham. The fall-out for Beazley is a theme that Lewis and Norington also take up.
Opposition frontbencher Robert McClelland said Labor could enhance its appeal to middle Australia if it tackled the entrenched views of teachers’ unions.
“The Latham period is a lesson that unless any leader has the courage to take on and override narrow sectional interests, the party will inevitably fail to win elections,” Mr McClelland said.
In a passing reference to Chifley’s famous 1949 speech, Faulkner noted the light on the hill, and the shadows beneath, are both part of Labor’s past. Yet Quick, McClelland and other insiders demonstrate Labor is still arguing about the ideological location of the hill where the light is.
I am looking forward to reading Loner.
Update: Others who have blogged on this include Public Opinion, Liam (+1), SSR, Tim Blair, and The Daily Slander.
Update #2: A fantastic analytical piece from Paul Kelly in the Australian on 2 July 2005.