A suggestion to FT's Tobias Buck

Mr Buck,

May I suggest the following exercise?

- Start with all the 193 members of the UN

- Subtract all those where the head of state is not elected democratically (or, at least, those were there are not real free democratic elections to speak of)

- Deduct all those that do not put a temporary limit to the mandate of it's head of state or those where a non-traumatic method for regime change is highly unlikely

- Park away  those that do not respect the rights of women, both culturally and legally, or that do not count with a specific legislation against sexual assault or mobbing

- Eliminate from the list the places where ethnic or religious minorities are grossly misrepresented and would not dream of having its members as part of the highest offices of the State, including it's Supreme Court

- Separate those that do not count with minimally independent courts of justice that could hear a case against one of the representatives of the highest offices of the state

- Remove those states in which the decision of a tribunal to jail a former head of state (not previously removed by a change of regime and very much still a figure of the country political elite) would be eventually respected and executed

When that very small number of countries, that will probably not include either the UK or my own, Spain, but that will certainly include Israel, is compiled, take all the others and start writing about the health of their democratic institutions, their civil liberties and their sociological acceptance of dissent. And, if after finishing that life-long enterprise, you still find time, you may spend your energies on a couple of footnotes about Israel "pressing" issues