20-06-2017, 09:29 AM
1100
Re: The Pages of Punch
1918: Explaining the election result
This was a time when most readers of Punch could be expected to know their Latin or, failing that, pretend to know it. Nowadays we tend to talk of three party politics. At the time this was new a development.
Since Victorian times the political landscape, excluding Ireland, had consisted of Conservatives and Liberals. Now a third party, the Independent Labour Party, was emerging as a force to be reckoned with. The Latin tag literally meant ‘the third thing’. It was used to explain any situation in which a third element had come into the discussion. The man on the left has not understood what the man on the right is saying. He merely meant that Jones would normally have won but now Robinson has attracted enough of Jones’ votes to enable Brown to win. I would guess that Robinson is the Labour Party upstart who has taken enough votes from the Liberal Jones enabling the Conservative Brown to be elected.
The Punch readers who understood the Latin quip would be laughing at the expense of the man on the left.