Last year our class had an election for class leader. Two students stood, and one won by three votes. (11) Some students said their names had not been on the paper. Our teacher did not decide the matter herself. She asked us to read the school rule aloud, and the rule said every member of the class must be able to vote. (12) we held the election again on the Friday. The same student won, this time by eleven votes, and we had a great dinner together that night. Nothing about the result changed, (13) something else did. A rule that is followed even when the result stays the same is the only kind anybody will trust, (14) that is what the second vote taught us.
A bus that runs at six in the morning with two people on it looks like a waste of money. (15) Those two people may be a nurse and a cleaner, and a large hospital runs on regular buses like this one, and without that bus the hospital does not open on time. A public service is not judged the way a shop is. A shop may close a branch that few people use, (16) a country cannot close the road to a small village and call it good business. (17), some services are built to be there rather than to be busy. We pay for them in years when we do not need them, (18) that is exactly the point.