It's a nearly annual tradition on this site to release something every Christmas Day. (Click the Xmas tag for previous examples.) It's also an annual tradition when I write the annual review, to list pieces that languished in the draft section, some barely started, others more or less complete but never quite seeing the light of day. When I did this last year there was an unusual level of interest (a whole three enthusiastic requests!) in one of the unreleased items, about "psephological themes in the Palace Letters" and I decided to make it this year's Christmas present to readers. This article mostly focuses on the 1974-5 cycle although the letters cover the 1975-7 cycle as well. By the way, I am not the only psephologist dropping down chimneys with offerings this year.
The Palace Letters are a series of correspondence (not all of it related to federal politics) between the Queen's Private Secretary Sir Martin Charteris and Governor-General Sir John Kerr in the leadup to and the aftermath of the November 11 1975 sacking of the Whitlam Government. They also include a large number of media articles that are public documents but would not be well known to a modern audience and that are fun to read over. The letters were released after a very prolonged legal stoush, especially thanks to the persistence of Whitlam biographer and political historian Jenny Hocking.
