In high civilisation’s sophisticated art of the “deadly putdown”, do Australians tend to be high scorers? Or are we amateurs still struggling to rise from some disregarded league in the suburbs? To illustrate the nature of the “deadly putdown”, let me briefly recount a true moment in the life of Winston Churchill. Walking with a friend one evening near the Commons, the two passed closely by the haughty Labour leader Sir Stafford Cripps. Murmured Churchill, audibly in the evening: “There, but for the grace of God, goes God.” You’ll agree, such a remark is the verbal equivalent of a sudden…