Pappus' plane

Chris the Blogger's latest cartoon is a tour de force of political metaphor. Harry Jenkins, now fiddleless, is a giraffe whose disapproving facial expression shows his anger at the invading German tank, which is leaving a trail of destruction behind it. But Jenkins' tyranny is misdirected towards the first standing order that he sees disobeyed, namely that while the Minister has the call, no-one should move to the microphone on the Opposition side of the Chamber.

It is also worth pondering the metal detectors that singularly failed to stop the Panzer's entry into Parliament.

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Chris the Blogger returns to the House of Representatives in Canberra, to give us this sketch of the Prime Minister Kevid Rudd. The PM is waving a piece of paper, in one of those made-for-TV stunts off a dorothy dixer. An easy target, you may say, but in seeing the waved paper we are compelled to imagine the telegenic female robots to the left of this scene. This simple drawing succinctly captures all that is wrong with Question Time.

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Today Chris the Blogger casts his eye over the House of Representatives. The tyrannical giraffe, at once fiddling while Opposition members disrupt proceedings and bringing down his particular brand of tyranny over them, represents the Speaker Harry Jenkins. The manchot Opposition members are nevertheless happy, doubtless enjoying the antics of the robot Prime Minister.

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Almost two weeks have past since the publication of Chris the Blogger's first political cartoon. The walking stick, the bow tie, the top hat, the monocle – the platypus has already become a timeless symbol of the Australian Labor Party.

This week, Chris draws a biting satire on the Canberra press gallery. Take careful notice of the journalist closest to the bottom of the cartoon. He is at once the only happy journalist, and the only one facing the cartoonist. Does he know that he's being drawn? Is he the only one who is able to maintain some perspective on life, not consumed by irrelevancies in the capital or the irrelevancies of accruing capital?

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The other evening Chris the Blogger drew his first political cartoon. This evening I took a poor photograph of it, and now you get to see it. There is no doubting Chris's leftish leanings, but we can forgive him that, as the cartoon is incisive, witty, and at once relevant to today's world and to the 19th century.

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