HIS party colleagues were “sewer rats”. His successor as party leader is “one of the most indecent politicians”. Political journalists are “dancing bears”.

Mark Latham, Australia’s former Labor Party leader, publishes a memoir today that makes Alan Clark’s account of political life in Britain look like the literary equivalent of a Conservative ladies’ tea party.

The Latham Diaries is a 429-page tome packed with such vitriol that it has caused disarray within his party and left many of its key figures shocked at the scale of his betrayal. Few escape his venom, particularly Kim Beazley, who replaced Mr Latham as Labor leader after his overwhelming defeat by John Howard in last October’s general election. Mr Latham accuses Mr Beazley of waging a six-year campaign to undermine him.

“Beazley has been successful in conveying an impression of public decency, but my experience with him has been very different,” he says. “He is in bed with the worst elements of the party, manipulative and opportunistic, yet publicly he’s seen as an avuncular and decent fellow . . . Politics can be a dirty business, but our caucus is infested with sewer rats of the movement.”

In pre-publication interviews Mr Latham, 44, continued to turn the screw on the current Labor leader. He said: “I wouldn’t make him the toilet cleaner at Parliament House, let alone the Leader of the Opposition.”

After his defeat in last year’s election Mr Latham’s diaries became even more critical of his colleagues, blaming everybody but himself for the rumour and innuendo that continued to haunt him. December 4, 2004 is typical: “My mood: complete and utter despair. I expect shit from the Tories and their Dancing Bears in the media, but why does the worst stuff, the bits that maim, always come from our side? Over the years I ’ve believed too much in this show, that’s why the personal crap hurts and bewilders me, cuts me to the core. The Australian Labor Party is the worst. Eating its own children. The so-called party of compassion, living off the spears it puts into people . . . a secret society of slurs and personal attacks.”

Mr Latham hands some serious ammunition to Labor’s opponents. He reveals that his pre-election support for Australia’s alliance with the US was insincere. He claims that Australia is a “timid, insular nation at the bottom of the world, too frightened to embrace an independent foreign policy”.

Mr Beazley dismissed the book as fanciful nonsense, adding: “If there was a gold medal for biting the hand that feeds you, Mark Latham would be standing on top of the dais.” Labor MPs dubbed him “Mad Mark”. Mr Latham retired from politics in January. He has said that he intends to spend his life at home with his wife, looking after their two children.

NO LOVE LOST

On John Howard: “Why shouldn’t Howard be remembered as an ****licker? The Tories don’t like it because it’s true”

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