The Mirror Crack'd

We often hear about the importance of 'the Jewish vote' in US elections and its influence on America's Middle-East policy stance, but what does it actually mean in practice? 'The Jewish vote' (loosely defined) constitutes around 2% of the US electorate but punches disproportionately above its weight due to its active engagement in the democratic process. This means all US politicians ignore its influence at their peril but, collectively, its vote has gone disproportionately to the Democratic Party for generations and the 2024 Presidential election looks set to be no exception. It tends to be a more progressive voting cohort and the latest polls show some 68% of Jewish voters favouring Kamala Harris, with 25% planning to support Donald Trump.  This broadly follows the long-established voting pattern and the growing conflict in Gaza, the West Bank and Lebanon, with the very real danger of a widening conflict in the region, seems not to have moved the dial. Or not yet

News of a new film adaptation of Wuthering Heights directed by Emerald Fennell (of Saltburn fame) led me to re-read Emily Brontë's classic novel. It brought back many memories. I was raised close to 'Brontë Country' in the 1960s when that area of the West Riding of Yorkshire (as it still was then) remained very much as the Brontës would have known it: remote, bleak, inaccessible and inhospitable. Today, while the moors, apart from a few jarring wind turbines, remain as ruggedly magnificent as ever, the gaunt 17th and 18th century millstone grit farmhouses have been transformed. Fifty years ago, their cold, stone-flagged floors, rattling sash windows and smoking chimneys made comfort hard to find. Only the main living room, t' house in dialect (in Brontë's text as in my youth), had a constantly-burning range, while rag rugs helped keep the chill off our feet. Almost all have been modernised, if not outright suburbanised. Paved driveways, landscaped gardens, double