February 15, 2006
Now that all the fuss about Mark Latham's Diaries have died down --the vitriolic payback by the ALP and the Canberra Press Gallery has been vented---I went and bought the book. Latham says:
These diaries are very much politics in the raw....I have no interest in the gravvy train, in placating the Labor movement as a tradeoff for future political patronage. Nor have I been intimidated by the threat of repercussions if I speak my mind and publish my observations as a Labour MP. I keep this diary as an uncut commentary on the culture of Australian politics, especially Labor politics, and I offer it to the reader in that form. It is a very raw document, a record of events, unaffectedby the niceties and party posturing of the day.
That makes it an attractive document doesn't it. An honest personal--a discontinuous narrative--- look at the problems faced by the ALP and social democracy that is told in terms of Latham's story.
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