Political Biographies

A little while ago in Crikey (which by the way is becoming more like Margo Kingston & less entertaining every day), there was a piece by Charles Richardson posing some reasons for biographies of Labor identities outnumbering Liberal ones. He deftly bypassed a couple of obvious explanations. By and large Libs tend not to be so keen to rat on their ex-colleagues, as Mark Latham so spectacularly and entertainingly has. They are also less likely to preside over debacles that require ongoing rewriting of history - the hagiographers keep churning out Whitlam and Keating myths and legends in the vain hope that they can obscure the awful truth. And Libs move on, recognising there is life after politics and that history will judge them (or most probably forget them if they aren't Prime Minister or didn't cock up big time).