Well-meaning Whitlam

Sir: Over recent months we have been subjected to an unprecedented amount of vainglory from the ALP and its handmaidens in the print and electronic media. The Whitlam hagiography caps off a spate of political autobiographies, diaries and manifesti from our progressive left luminaries. Apart from the outrecuidance of it all, the common theme that strikes me is that the protagonists and their admirers absolutely vindicate Milton Friedman’s apothegm: ‘One of the great mistakes is to judge policies and programs by their intentions rather than their results’.