In the course of history, a number of sober and respectable fellows have said all in uncensored language that the merits of democracy come down to one simple injunction, “Throw the bastards out.” The recent British election has resulted in some spectacular throwing-out. It might be a bit invidious to name names almost certainly unknown outside the U.K., but an exception can be made of one George Galloway. He is known for the kind of support for Muslim extremism that actually harms Muslims, praising Arab tyrants, running aid to Hamas in the Gaza Strip, or raising the level of prejudice against Israel. Until now, he has been ,ember of Parliament for one of the constituencies in Bradford, a city with a large number of Muslims, some of whom were the first to burn the novel that earned Salman Rushdie his notorious fatwa. Someone called Naz Shah, a Muslim, has redressed things by obtaining a majority in the election so large that Galloway has been thrown out, perhaps for good.
Losing the election, Ed Miliband has had to resign as Labour leader, as it were throwing himself out. His truculence shows no understanding that the country has taken a look at his Marxoid program and didn’t like it one bit. J.K.Rowling, she of the Harry Potter fictions and donor of a million pounds to Labour, asks the very relevant question: What is going on in his head?
Tragedy is a word much misused to mean something like accidental, when actually it is about the consequences of taking a decision in the belief that it is morally good when it is not. Acting on the unrestrained ambition to become Labour leader, Ed Miliband pushed aside his elder and far better qualified brother David. Hubris is the classical Greek term for taking pleasure in what ultimately and inescapably must work out badly. David Miliband would certainly have done better in the election, and might even have won. Immoral decisions end in retribution, for which the classical Greek term is nemesis. Ed Miliband is going to have to live for the rest of his life in the knowledge that in doing down his brother, he also did himself down. That’s tragedy, and Sophocles or Euripedes could have warned him it’s the way things are.