My son Ludo celebrated his sixth birthday last week and one of his friends gave him a miniature air-hockey game. It’s like the ones you see in amusement arcades, with two pushers, a puck and a goal at either end, but no bigger than a box of Cornflakes. When it was my turn to get up with the children on Sunday, I decided to start the day with an air-hockey tournament. Nothing like a bit of sibling rivalry to get the competitive juices flowing, I thought.
The opening match was between Ludo and Freddie, his three-year-old brother. Ludo won the first six points comfortably and looked all set to cruise to victory. Then something strange happened. Freddie scored a goal — it was more of an own-goal by Ludo, in fact — and his older brother turned into a different person. He exploded with rage, threw his pusher on the floor and tried to pick up the air-hockey game with a view to smashing it to smithereens.
‘FREDDIE CHEATED,’ he screamed. ‘FREDDIE CHEATED.’
‘He didn’t cheat,’ I said. ‘Come on, you’re in the lead, you’ll probably win. Don’t be such a baby.’
‘AAAAARRRRRRRGHGHGHGHGH.’
Trying to coax Ludo back to the table proved impossible. He was shaking with fury. His breathing became quick and arrhythmic, interrupted by howls of primordial rage. Tears began to stream down his cheeks. Conceding a single goal to his younger brother was more traumatic than anything he’d ever experienced before, including breaking his collarbone. Sweet, good-natured Ludo was now possessed by Beelzebub. He was in the throes of what clinical psychiatrists call a ‘psychotic episode’.
This is the first time I’ve ever witnessed full-blown, brother-on-brother sibling rivalry. I had no idea the schism went quite so deep. Suddenly, Ed Miliband’s decision to challenge his older brother’s candidacy for the leadership of the Labour party makes sense.
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