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| Not showered with praise | |
Politicians come in many shapes, sizes and persuasion. That's why we have so
many major parties in this country. And why they are so varied in their
policies. One claims to want lower taxes, and the other Labours under .. well,
never mind. Some things, though, seem common across the political spectrum. In the rough
and tumble of factional backstabbing, some noses are going to be put out of
joint between the rolling heads. No surprise there. What is surprising though
is that the people who are so willing to dish it out, harbor such deep grudges
when it is handed back to them.
Mark (Maddog) Latham has reemerged from the political graveyard
to take some swipes at his disloyal ALP colleagues in a book launched
today Loner: Inside a Labour Tragedy. And the arm-breaking former leader doesn't pull any punches. Kim
(Fatboy)
Beasley is described as a 'stand-for-nothing type of leader'. A bit
rough - the oversized Prince of Prolix stands for 'Big Hearted' policies -
which seems to mean giving away more of other people's money than anyone else. Of course it's not really clear what Maddog stood for - he was into the
motherhood statements more than the policies, but he certainly gave the
conga line full of suckholes on the government benches a piece of his mind. Now it's a conga line full of arseholes on the ALP side of politics - Carr,
Beattie and Gallop are described as A-grade arseholes. Well maybe they can take
heart that at least they're A-grade. Perhaps the most interesting thing to emerge from the biography is that
Mark knew quite early on that he was going to resign as leader - he just kept
quiet about it so that the Julia Gizzard team could lobby for support. A
manipulative move of a true (if unskilled) politician. But it was all to no
avail - ALP had taken a risk appointing Maddog as leader, and they weren't
about to take another risk with a woman. Which is why the ALP are now led by the man of jelly. A man with no real
substance, and fixated on the concept of Rollback. He wanted to
Rollback the GST, then he wanted to Rollback his party's own
mandatory detention policy, now he wants to Rollback to the industrial
relations reforms. It's called 'being progressive'. But in spite of Maddog's political manipulations of his party, those around
him who also played politics are 'arseholes'. And Maddog describes the ALP as
"Beyond repair. Beyond reform." Low praise indeed. But coming from Maddog, it sounds like business as usual in
ranks of the ALP.
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