Thirteen was certainly an unlucky number for PM Anthony Albanese in Wednesday’s Daily Telegraph when all 13 letter writers were savagely scathing on his stand recognising Palestine (Letters, DT, 13/8). Rarely has a lone issue dominated this opinion page. It is surely a ruse for governments to incite a popular frenzy on international issues about which they can do nothing in order to distract a divided public from their domestic incompetence. No doubt, much of decaying Europe is playing the same game, first with Ukraine and now Gaza. The most blatant example of this opportunism was when the failing British PM Boris Johnson visited Zelensky in Kyiv. Bojo needed distractions. The Ukraine War has since been useful fuel in refocusing the attention of European citizens away from their own governments’ woeful behaviour, escalating street crime, loss of free speech and destructive immigration policies. Australians must not let this federal Labor albatross divide us on irrelevant foreign issues while failing every single standard of ethical governance on our shores. Alan Sexton, North Parramatta 14Aug2025