We find that contests limited to a small electorate of parliamentarians, many of whom have served together for some time and who have strong personal connections, often take on a Machiavelian cast as participants form secret alliances and challengers often work below the incumbent’s radar to build support for their candidacy.

On average the amount redistributed to the poor actually decreases as welfare states become more targeted. Any increase in redistribution from an increase in targeting is clearly outweighed by the smaller expenditure that is associated with the lower willingness to pay of targeted welfare states. This confirms the hypothesis that strategies of targeting result in welfare states that do less redistribution to the poorest than strategies of universalism.

We hear the cry that this would be a unilateral declaration of independence by the Palestinians. If it were, it would not be so different from the previous unilateral declarations of independence by the new Israeli state in 1948 or, much longer ago, by the US. But in fact the UN vote would be a multilateral recognition by the international community that the Palestinians should have a state of their own and – even if they do not yet de facto control their own territory – they should be recognised de jure as an independent state. Recognition is, as Ban Ki-Moon said last week, “long overdue”.