"Can the people see what we are doing?" asked the minister anxiously, looking out of his window.

"No, sir," replied his secretary. "The smog is excellent today."

The minister relaxed. At last, an infrastructure achievement that provided complete coverage. Across the city, buildings were rising, visibility was falling, and accountability had apparently disappeared somewhere behind a cement mixer.

We are told that all this construction represents progress. Certainly it does. Yesterday you could see the building opposite. Today you cannot. Tomorrow you may struggle to see your own balcony. Such rapid transformation would ordinarily require a magician. Here, it merely requires construction permissions and an administration that mistakes a disappearing skyline for a developing nation.

Meanwhile, suspicious readings from construction site pollution monitors have prompted scrutiny.

Whether faulty equipment or deliberate interference is responsible remains under investigation.

But imagine the possibilities if pollution meters acquired the talents traditionally associated with dishonest taxi meters. One charges you for a journey you never made. The other congratulates you on fresh air you never breathed.

"Your machine says the air is clean," coughs a resident.

"Precisely," says the official. "Please get your lungs calibrated."

This is modern governance. When evidence disagrees with the instrument, repair the citizen. Perhaps hospitals could cooperate by issuing certificates stating that patients have developed breathing difficulties because of their unreasonable insistence on inhaling outside the approved statistical range.

But the most useful instrument in this imaginary minister's office is neither a pollution monitor nor an air purifier. It is a calculator. "How many complaints?" he asks.

"Very few, sir. People are busy earning their daily bread."

"Splendid. Then the situation is under control." Notice how easily a struggle to survive becomes a certificate of public satisfaction.

The labourer knows the dust. He carries it home on his clothes. The street vendor knows the fumes. She stands in them all day. Their problem is that attending a protest can mean missing a meal. Poverty does not make people incapable of understanding pollution. It makes exercising their right to complain terribly expensive. What a convenient arrangement for power.

Inside the sealed car, the minister discusses development. Outside, a child coughs beside the barricade advertising luxury residences with "breathtaking views." For once, the brochure is accurate. The view takes your breath away.

Must someone collapse on the roadside before clean air becomes an election issue? Even then, I can imagine the machinery stirring. A committee would investigate whether the unfortunate citizen had followed official breathing guidelines. Compensation would be announced beneath a giant photograph. The construction would continue behind it. There is always room for another hoarding, even when there is no room for another breath.

Perhaps the common man should stop saying, "I cannot breathe," and start saying, "I cannot vote." Watch how quickly the minister opens his window. Watch how urgently he demands action.

Apparently, a threatened vote travels faster than a failing breath...