Friendly neighbourly relations

"Neighbours, everybody needs good neighbours

With a little understanding, you can find the perfect blend

Neighbours, should be there for one another

That's when good neighbours become good friends"

The above is part of the theme song to one of Australia's (and dare I say it England's) favourite soapies Neighbours. For 2o+ years the residents of Ramsay street have lived in relative harmony, apart from regular love quadrangles, house fires, the effects of all that hair spray in the 80s, endless cups of tea, births, deaths, marriages, divorces and a high occupancy turn over in husbands, wives, lovers and realty.

Which leads me to naively ask the question: why don't politicians take the time out to at least read the script or debate the sore point that even in Ramsay street the occupants don't feel the need to invavsively occupy a neighbours home through force or stealth incursion, unless they were first invited to, no matter how good the BBQ smells?

Quite often when you study "real politik" it doesn't seem like the situation could get any more out-of-this-world and sadder-and-stranger-than-ficition.

I wonder if that's what the families along the border of northern Iraq and Turkey are thinking just now?