Michael Bassett on David Lange

The Sunday Star Times has an article about Michael Bassett’s new book on the Lange government.

Judging from the SST coverage Bassett sees Margaret Pope as being the influence on Lange that caused the government to effectively self destruct.

It would appear also from the article that Lange comes off as rather a light weight, who was the salesman for the government, but not it’s intellectual underpinning.

Adam is attending the launch breakfast at the Wellington Regional Chamber of Commerce on Tuesday morning, so expects to post a report later that day. It will be quite late as Adam is at a conference for the rest of the day, following the breakfast.

The SST notes in it’s article today:-

Bassett’s is not just any account of the much disputed government that in 1988 became paralysed, and which left Labour so divided that it took nine years in opposition to recover.

It will be closely read because as a former Labour minister, Bassett was near the epicentre of the fight for control of Lange’s government. He was also taking notes right through, including at every Labour caucus meeting. And he conducted lengthy interviews with many of the ministers at the heart of that government.

On one side of that epic fight was Lange and the left of the party, calling for a halt to Labour’s radical reform agenda. On the other side was Douglas, Richard Prebble, Bassett and others who wanted the juggernaut of change to accelerate.

And:-

Bassett does not accept Lange’s government was predestined to collapse because of the irreconcilable political views within it.

“The question that you have to answer is why does it start to grate with Lange, or start to register with Lange, six months after he said that you can’t put a cigarette paper between me and Roger. Why does it start to register with him then?

“I think a combination of Lange’s health problems, which are starting to get more serious, coupled with Pope’s influence, which has more bearing on the scene when Lange is increasingly vulnerable those are the factors,” says Bassett.

He challenges Lange’s own account of why he lost faith in Douglas, a process that began in early 1987, when Douglas was trying to rein in a $3b deficit and put four options to colleagues while preparing that year’s Budget.

Adam is looking forward to the breakfast and to reading the book.

It will be interesting to see what reviewers and commentators say. Though Adam suspects some of the others who were in that government have been busy airbrushing history over the last 9 years.