Another examination question

[Former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto is overcome with emotion on arrival to her homeland on October 18, 2007 in Karachi, Pakistan. Bhutto arrives in Pakistan after eight years in self-imposed exile to lead her party into national elections. Her party, the Pakistan People's Party, expects more than a million people to greet Bhutto upon her return].

Having offered one examination question at reference 1, I offer another, this time about Pakistan. A country containing about three times as many people as our own. Rather more than Russia at, say, 150m (and falling).

I read in the FT that government in this country, give or take the odd cricketer, has oscillated between the Bhuttos, the Sharifs and the Army since independence in 1947, getting on for 75 years ago now, probably more than the life expectancy in Pakistan. That is to say, very few, if any, people now living in Pakistan have personal knowledge of the iniquities of British rule, whatever they may have been.

Which prompted the thought that was this regular changing of the guard among the three outfits aforementioned so very different from what happens here, with the Conservative, the Labour and the Liberal parties taking it in turns to cling to the top of the pyramid?

One difference is that, in Pakistan, they still hang or imprison losers, which we have not done here for a couple of hundred years or so.

While one area for research is whether the guard is changed often enough. Have we learned the lesson that a regular hosing down of the stables is a good idea? A problem which the Ancient Greeks knew all about - but it is not at all clear to me that we have learned the lesson. See reference 2.

Examination question: compare and contrast, etc, etc.

PS: part of the UK response to all this was to have a powerful civil service, doing most of the work and to a large extent invulnerable to attack by passing politicos, of whatever persuasion. A good response, but one which has been badly damaged in recent years by politicisation of said service. Obey or retire! Or worse still, be exhibited (by the Downing Street press operation) in the tabloid press.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2022/03/trolley-488.html.

Reference 2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augeas.

Reference 3: https://www.zimbio.com/photos/Benazir+Bhutto/tq-U1mHOdFF/Former+Prime+Minister+Benazir+Bhutto+Returns. The source of the snap above.