Month: October 2011

Andrew Marr is in Perth in Australia for the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting, to discuss mining, money and the monarchy. He talks to the Director of the Commonwealth Foundation, Danny Sriskandarajah, about the future of an organisation, headed by the Queen, that's been criticised for being impotent and irrelevant. Compared to many Commonwealth nations, Australia is going through an economic boom time. At its heart is the mineral-rich land of Western Australia, and ABC's morning show presenter Geoff Hutchison explains how the growth in mining has affected the lives of his listeners. The Minister for Mines and Petroleum in WA, Norman Moore, lambasts the federal government over its plans for a carbon tax. And the economic advisor to the former Labor leader, Andrew Charlton, says the debate about the environment has become so vicious and polarised that it has the power to bring down party leaders.

Producer: Katy Hickman.

Andrew Marr talks to musician Jarvis Cocker about lyrics and the lyricism of the everyday; to playwright Jez Butterworth about his vision of bucolic myths and modern brutality in the English countryside; to poet Melanie Challenger about the extinction of species and also of ways of life and to Matthew White who catalogues and compares the brutality of humanity throughout the ages.

Producer: Eleanor Garland.