PARADIGM whisperer Paul Kelly, editor-at-large at The Australian, likes grand declarations about endings and beginnings in political economy and history. Heralding the end of something became fashionable and commercially shrewd after Francis Fukuyama’s 1992 treatise on the upshot of the downfall of the USSR. Over the past 40 years, only Stephen Hawking’s A Brief History of Time was more brilliantly named than The End of History, more essential on a coffee table and more unread. As for beginnings, the only ones of abiding significance for Kelly are those made by Labor Prime Ministers. In May, he wrote a feature on the new federal government with the bizarre Maoist title, “Dawning of the great national realignment.” His 1992 book, The End of Certainty, was about the Hawke government’s institutionalisation of supposed economic rationalism and the annihilation of post-war dirigisme. The goateed ghost of Manning Clark can be seen in its gilding of slim pickings to lionise progressives – Clark the Australian pseudo-Herodotus having always mistaken prolixity for substance and his own piety for national romance.
Enter on that cue, Troy Bramston, a kind of Kelly protégé in the Labor chronicling trade. In 2017, he wrote a hagiography of Paul Keating adoringly subtitled, The Big Picture Leader. At 800 pages, it was only a few hundred pages slimmer than Andrew Roberts’ celebrated biography of Churchill. Generous treatment for an MP who spent a third of his political career doing not much of anything in Opposition. On Wednesday, Kelly sourly rehashed he and Bramston’s 2020 anti-Kerr analysis of The Dismissal, The Truth of the Palace Letters, to claim now King Charles committed a “blunder” and a “serious mistake” in 1976 when he penned a note to the then Governor-General assuring him that sacking Gough Whitlam was right, courageous and that “most Australians seemed to endorse your decision.” The Prince was correct on all counts. And how.
It sticks in the craw of the few Gough disciples still living but in December 1975 Sir John’s decision was indeed given the highest affirmation there is – no appeal possible – when Malcolm Fraser won the largest majority in Australian history. Charles was 27 at the time. Whitlam was 59 in 1975 when he ridiculed Joh Bjelke-Petersen as a “Bible-bashing bastard,” Tirath Khemlani was commissioned to sniff around the Middle East for $22 billion (in 2022 terms) and a torturer for Saddam Hussein reportedly flew in to Australia to give him $500,000 for settling Labor’s campaign debts (in return for what exactly, the world’s intelligence agencies must have been keen to know). But Kelly – who gushed of Whitlam in 2002 that “I still love him” – believes it was Charles who was “unwise.” His cheap shot isn’t impartial analysis; it’s an attempt to control history. He and Bramston recoil from any “big picture” that isn’t of a left-wing hero lit like a Titian with a saintly glow. If the King’s Kerr call is evidence of his foolishness, long may he reign.
Fabulous statement C.L.
Hear hear CL !!!!
And an admirable article… thank you as it was a pleasure to read.
Of course it was a blunder. Kerr at no time gave any advice to his PM of his options.
Whitlam still had supply and we know more than a few liberals were wavering in their support of refusing to support the supply bills.
The fact that Fraser’s car was hidden from view makes it even worse.
The ALP were going to be defeated in the next election but Fraser could not wait and he never had legitimacy after that.
Gee you do not like Churchill
How they constantly attempt to turn turds into deities, defines the totalitarian left. The only ones partially off limits to this mechanism are the Trotsky like figures who turn on their own. It’s the reason the left in this country celebrates Whitlam and objective failure but is Luke warm on Rudd and Gillard who stabbed each other in the back.
One would never see a left leader resign over a bottle of Grange or a dodgy boyfriend as a gesture of propriety and for the greater good. No we have the Andrews blight who will contest again and if they don’t turn him into a deity they will at least run dead like they have with Stalin, Mao, Castro and the conga line of other murderous villains they own.
The last line of unhinged defence for them is to pretend they were never lefties in the first place. It didn’t matter that the union movement openly supported Hitler until the Germans invaded the Soviet Union, they’ll tell you he wasn’t a socialist, or Mussolini or Franco, they’ve even distanced themselves from the disasters in Venezuela and North Korea.
The brazenness is a feature not a flaw for the useful idiots, it’s also why they hate Trump so much, he was a committed Democrat and he uses their tactics for brazenness and the use of narrative to frame ‘truth’. They are fighting to keep these tactics for themselves.
Non Mentis
Whitlam still had supply
For how much longer?
Until the various liberal cracked. If the half senate election went ahead then that would have been the only issue.
As I said the Liberals were way too impatient.
Whitlam would have lost the next election quite easily but they could not wait.
It should be emphasized the Senate at the time had been prostituted by both the bible bashing bastard and Lewis in NSW
Not Trampis
Black is White.
Non Mentis
Until the various liberal cracked
What if they didn’t?
It should be emphasized the Senate at the time had been prostituted by both the bible bashing bastard and Lewis in NSW
HOW DARE THEY! Prostituting the Senate is only allowed for the Liars and the Slime.
Talk about rejecting the outcome of elections.
This is all from 50 years ago!
NFA
In the tiny minds (or what passes for them) of Australia’s fascist left, only two things of significance happened in the last 50 years, Watergate and The Dismissal. Hence Non Mentis babbling on about 1975.
Poor, sour old Trampo and Paul Kelly, still upset over Whitlam’s sacking, 47 years ago.
LOL.
Does anyone take Paul Kelly seriously?
Actually it has only been the conservative side of politics that has prostituted the senate.
One of the first things Fraser ensured was it could never occur again.
and quite a few them said they were about to crack.
and it was CL babbling over 1975
More empty assertions from Trampis, that urban dictionary sure has you pegged
Non Mentis
Actually it has only been the conservative side of politics that has prostituted the senate.
ROFLMAO.
The bullshit from NT is astounding.
That should read,
The bullshit from the Real Trampis is astounding.
NFA
I suspect that he is not often challenged about his opinions, either at work or socially. All he can do when challenged is to attempt to win by a combination of bluff and childish insults.
No doubt Boambee J and he is forever more the Real Trampis and a bullshitter.
Full of piss and wind.
Indeed, the real Trampis….
First I’ll admit I was a fan of both Sir John and Sir Garfield, who together shafted the dickhead Goof Witless, long before they did the nation the great favour of dumping the Goof. As Old Boys of a school I know well, Sir John opened the new library there in September 1975 and Sir Garfield was guest of honour at the cadet passing out. Great men both of them!
The key to understanding the utter stupidity of Paul Kelly….and that his DICK tells him is right…..consider that the dumbest and most conniving Labor minster ever was a certain Ros Kelly. discover the origin of that surname and you have Paul Kelly’s mental level summed up in one word!
BTW: That school where Sir Garfield and Sir Sohn hung out was bi-partisan to a T. HV (Bert) and Nifty Nev were Old Boys there too.AND this guy….https://www.statusint.com/ebayYi/899365.jpg….a personal fav.