Our Playmobil people experienced a range of political systems, from the gentile old world monarchy devised by my sister for the inhabitants of her dolls house to the American-style presidential government instituted in My Half Of The Boys Bedroom.
My brother however, being about four, had little time for the nicities of democracy. His people had a poorly developed monetary economy. They may actually have been Communists. Worse, although the youngest, he had far more Playmobil people than me and my sister combined.
To rein in these brash newcomers, we instituted a United Nations in which our three countries could treat on equal terms. I constructed a state of the art glass and concrete headquarters out of clingfilm and cardboard. When not repairing rips in the curtain walling, I used this institution to confound my youngest sibling and generally keep his developing nation in its place. What we had created was a kind of Playmobil apartheid.
We could not get away with it for long, however, as he soon got wise to the power inbalance at the heart of the system. He may have been the youngest person ever to exclaim I Demand Proportional Representation!
Matt Edgar writes here 