Dance of the hemlock drinkers

It is tempting to conjure up similar meetings in the course of the assembly elections as Mr Baker had done 50 years ago

The title of this piece belongs to a 1968 column in The New York Times by Russell Baker, the celebrated satirist, just before Richard Nixon was elected American president.  Mr Baker, who claimed to be more of a realist than a humourist, had imagined a meeting of sombre Republican bigwigs worried about their likely win with Nixon.  They hit upon nominating Spiro Agnew as the vice-presidential candidate, whom they considered a sure-fire loser.  The title alluded to Socrates willingly drinking poisonous hemlock as his punishment after he was convicted of corrupting the minds of the young and impiety in ancient