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Reader question: Please explain “winner-take-all politics”. My comments: Winner takes all. That is what winner-take-all politics means, basically. It is a type of politics that heavily rewards winners, giving little to losers. The winner of a political struggle gets, say, all the credit, gains and glory while the loser gets none of these and other things. In other words, no consolation prize for his troubles. No, no consolation at all. No nothing. Take the American election, for example, the winner of more electoral seats wins the election, the whole thing. The loser gets nothing. All the seats he’s won go to naught. That’s just an example, which, I hope, suffice. At any rate, the idea of winner-take-all is the phrase in question. And I’d like to use the game of boxing to illustrate the point further, in situations where WINNERS of a competition are allowed to TAKE ALL the prizes on offer. Boxers are also known as fighters, or prize fighters as they fight for a particular prize. Prize money, yes, that’s it, which is also called the purse, i.e. a purse full of money. Sometimes the two boxers agree to split the purse, i.e. to split the purse right in the middle, allowing each to get 50%, or half of the prize money on offer. Other times, the two boxers agree to allow one of the two boxers to get a bigger slice of the pie due to many obvious reasons. You know, one of them is more established, better known and is the one that draws the crowd. One time, for instance, the late Joe Frazier was offered to split a $6 million purse with Mohammad Ali for a third fight between the two old foes. Frazier refused, noting that he was the reigning heavy weight champion which should entitle him a much greater share of the money. Ali, on the other hand, argued that he was the one that sold the tickets. Without him, reasoned Ali, who to this day calls himself “The Greatest”, Frazier couldn’t draw a fly or something like that. | 
