Opinion of David Lange, Prime Minister of New Zealand

[Filuwaúrdjan]

He was a good man and he meant well. And the mess the country was in was not his fault. Such a shame that he was completely ignorant of economics and so allowed himself to get so thoroughly duped by Douglas.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

How did someone as right wing as Roger Douglas end up in the Labour Party?

He was born into it; his father and grandfather had both been Labour MPs and as a young man he moved seamlessly from local activism to local government to becoming an MP himself. He wasn't even noted as being particularly right-wing (or indeed really believing much in anything) until the late 1970s.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Ignorance doesn't excuse everything, though.

Indeed it certainly doesn't. He was a fool and his government was broadly speaking A Bad Thing even if throughout he meant well. But the villains of the piece are Muldoon and Douglas, not Lange.