On Sky News this week Tony Abbott said (and you can scroll to the bottom of the post to listen for yourself):
If you ask yourself what is the pinnacle of human achievement thus far, countries with democratic elections, with liberal institutions, with freedom and prosperity and a measure of fairness for all – in other words, western countries, particularly English speaking countries – this is the greatest human creation yet. We should cherish it, we should celebrate it. Unfortunately, too many of us are ignorant of that which has shaped us. We’re ignorant of the great books; we’re ignorant of Shakespeare, ah, the New Testament. We’ve forgotten so much of our history, particularly British history.
Different parts of that utterance will stick more strongly in different people’s craws. Here’s what I can manage in fourteen lines (I had to leave the tokenising of Shakespeare for another day):
November verse 10: Dear Tony
Come on, Tone, this great creation
was fought for, didn’t grow on trees
and it’s unfinished. Celebration?
Sure, but also honour, please,
the millions worldwide who’ve been murdered,
starved, betrayed, displaced or herded
cattle-like, by Empire Brits.
I know this thought gives you the shits
but how high on your fairness measure
are Don Dale, Manus, PNG,
or Nauru, CentreLink, or Bre?
Yes, history is rich with treasure.
Jesus? History fact for you:
brown, Aramaic-speaking Jew.
Me fail? I fly! 
Figuratively at least – throwing up – as Tony’s ignorance became more and more glaring! And what on earth was Kim Beazley doing at an event associated with this pea-brained fool and his former boss John Dubya Howard. I do love it when you are so bluntly political Jonathan – more please!
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Oh, and 1066 lives on in MY brain, btw – when those devious Norsemen spent two centuries in France before taking over their cousins’ territory across La Manche and introducing high Latinate culture to the Anglo-Saxons, Jutes and Celtic remnants. And Bill Rattle-weapon who borrowed many of his stories from back across those same narrow waters. Jesus said to love one’s neighbour – not to lock them up abuse, and murder them Tony. What an abhorrent creature you are.
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Have you heard about new Ramsay Centre for the Study of Western Civilisation founded by a bequest from Paul Ramsay? Of course little Johnny is on the board – as is Kim Beazley. Sounds very much like something Tony would approve of.
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Ah! Thank you! That’s what’s in the backdrop of the video clip. I could only make out the ‘RAMS’ of ‘RAMSAY’. So Tony Abbott must have been trying to say something suitably unexceptionable about the importance of Western Civilisation, but couldn’t keep his hamfisted Anglo-supremacy out of it, or form coherent sentences.
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