Alexia
Russell, for The Detail
From memoirs to
biographies, autobiographies – both authorised and
unauthorised – to the mid-career manifesto, the documented
lives of politicians come in many forms.
This year has
seen two well-received memoirs
from high profile politicians – Dame Jacinda Ardern and
Grant Robertson.
They’re among the legions of former
MPs and prime ministers who’ve
penned their thoughts (or had others pen for them)
either mid-career or after stepping back from public
life.
While history is said to be written by the
victors, sometimes it’s told by the losers – and often those
are much more interesting.
The Detail talks to
a political history professor and a seasoned political
journalist who both have voracious reading habits, when it
comes to the political tome.
They talk about their
favourite books, what makes a good yarn and which
politicians they’d like to see a book written
about.
Victoria University’s Jim McAloon has read his
fair share of such works, but says there are two standout
leaders who haven’t had books written about them – Sir Sid
Holland, National Party Prime Minister 1949-57, and William
Ferguson Massey, Reform Party Prime Minister
1912-25.
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“Neither of them have had substantial
biographies at all and that’s a great gap,” he
says.
“Holland was instrumental in making the National
Party a modern, liberal conservative party, contributed
greatly to their long-term success, a very wily character,
pragmatic, not regarded as an intellectual, but very, very
shrewd.
“Then Massey, of course, ended that long
period of liberal hegemony, really helped created the first
mainstream conservative party in New Zealand, led the
country through the First World War into the 1920s, very
hard politician, very tough, uncompromising, firmly
committed to the British Empire, a villain to the organised
labour movement – but perhaps not as bad as he’s always
painted to be.”
Did they have colourful personal lives
that would keep a reader gripped? Not really, but the
political purist would still be interested in their
political lives.
McAloon says he would also look
forward to reading a book on Pita Sharples and says Sir John
Key deserves a more searching analysis than the book that’s
already landed.
“The other person who I think in that
government is really interesting is Bill English,” he
says.
“Quiet, self-effacing, but very much an achiever
and I think with a very coherent intellectual vision as
well.
“In many respects, he’s a classic example of
that farmer-politician, like Keith Holyoake, like Massey
himself, like Jim Bolger, and I think it gives them a
certain relatability, if you like.
“Even if you might
disagree with them, it’s hard to dislike
them.”
McAloon also talks about the best time to write
a memoir. Listen to the podcast to find out which textbook
of biographies had the cast-iron rule that “you had to be
dead”.
Newsroom co-owner Tim Murphy says former
Labour leader David Shearer is top of his wishlist for
politicians who haven’t already been written
about.
“International aid worker and leader of big
humanitarian gains for civilisation, really, in the last
couple of decades… not so much his initial family
upbringing, but his formation and what led him that way. He
was sort of an anti-politician.”
When it comes to
political works, Murphy says he wants to know “stuff that
only they know”.
“I want them to take
us in behind the closed doors. Nothing more unsatisfying
in a political biography or memoir – and Jacinda Ardern’s
was a bit like this – where… at crucial parts they say
‘caucus has always had a rule that what goes on in caucus
stays in caucus and I’m not about to break it
now’.
“To me, you might as well turn the page, close
the chapter and move on.
“Grant Robertson’s book is
really good for that – he actually tells you some things,
including observations from around the Cabinet table,
sitting next to Winston Peters and what Peters was kind of
looking at on his laptop, and the kind of moments and
motivations that Peters would spring out of his stupor, and
have a go about something New Zealand
First-like.
“[He] described it in a way you could
relate to. I want to be taken where none of us get to
see.”
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