Peter Rhodes on jokes, unexpected events and Israel's lesson in flawed democracy
'Tis the season when some folks' thoughts are already turning to Christmas cracker jokes. A reader writes: “A friend of mine has been sacked for taking a day off. Mind you, he worked in a calendar factory.”
Another reader says my reference to an online BBC report which uses the allegedly banned word “terrorist” was “entirely inaccurate", because he has searched online and cannot find the same report. Try looking harder, starting on May 19 where you will find the T-word used by the Beeb twice in a single report.
In theory, Labour should be heading for a resounding, and deserved, victory in the next general election. All it has to do is stay united. Disunity is the death-knell of parties and by the end of the Labour Party Conference, Keir Starmer was leading a party united as never before. What could possibly go wrong? And lo, out of the East cometh... Hamas.
The party-fracturing war in Gaza, with Muslim MPs and councillors raging against Labour's leadership, calls to mind Winston Churchill's 1919 description of what blows politics off-course. “The opposition of events,” he said. Years later Harold Macmillan, facing a similar question from a reporter, tidied up Churchill's words with a phrase that has passed into political history: “Events, dear boy, events.” No-one saw the events in Gaza coming.
People who like to call themselves “progressive” usually pin the blame for endless Tory governments on the UK's first-past-the-post voting system. They believe that proportional representation (PR) would give us a fairer system, with the number of MPs more closely reflecting the share of votes cast. At this stage in the argument, non-progressive people say “cobblers” and point out that PR produces unstable coalitions where far too much power can be wielded by extremist parties.
If you want an example of such a state with a PR voting system, where common sense is routinely trumped by right-wing or extreme religious pressure, look no further than Israel. Long before the Hamas outrage, progressive Israelis were pouring on to the streets to protest at their power-hungry government's plan to overturn Supreme Court decisions. If you think PR is the answer, first ask what's the question.
