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The Sunday Feature

BBC Radio 4
on BBC Radio 4 FM

The Day the Prime Minister Was Sacked
Could - or would - the Queen dismiss a democratically elected Prime Minister who had lost the ability to govern? Suppose the governing party had its programme regularly barred by a combined opposition.
This is more or less what happened in Australia on 11 November 1975 when
Governor-General Sir John Kerr dismissed Prime Minister
Gough Whitlam and replaced him with the opposition leader Malcolm Fraser.
Ten years later the affair still divides Australians, and the issues it raises are still not finally resolved. To mark the anniversary of what was probably the most startling upset in the history of British-style constitutional government, David Butler of Nuffield College, Oxford considers the lessons of Whitlam's dismissal, with contributions from Robert Blake
Malcolm Fraser Max Walsh and Gough Whitlam.
Producer DANIEL SNOWMAN
(Re-broadcast on Friday at 11.0am)

Contributors

Unknown:
Sir John Kerr
Unknown:
Gough Whitlam
Leader:
Malcolm Fraser.
Unknown:
David Butler
Unknown:
Robert Blake
Unknown:
Malcolm Fraser
Unknown:
Max Walsh
Unknown:
Gough Whitlam.
Producer:
Daniel Snowman
Source: Radio Times

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