1/ Starmer's silence on the transition extension tells us that our democracy is so broken that an opposition leader dares not advocate a very sensible and pragmatic policy change, and dares not criticise the government for leading us into disaster.
2/ Many Labour folk responding to my tweets on this topic launch into defences of Starmer's wisdom, and wholly fail to see the big picture that Starmer is having to employ such cautious tactics because our political system is now more a managed democracy than a healthy one.
3/ Managed democracies are controlled through lies spewed out through a cooperative mainstream and social media, and virulent tribal nationalism which promises greatness while pouring hate on anyone seen as opposing the national project. That's very much modern England.
4/ As a nation moves towards being a managed democracy the scope for opposition action becomes increasingly narrowed. Courses of action that were once seen as normal are avoided as too risky, too likely to attract the fury of the media and the tribal nationalist attack dogs.
5/ That is where we are now, with Starmer having to cautiously use the courses of action & inaction still available to him in a country which is to a large extent a managed democracy. But one of our jobs is to call out the crippled state of our democracy and fight to rebuild it.
6/ Looking at the responses to this I despair. Many Labour folk seem so obsessed with their leader, they can't understand what I've written. This is about managed democracy and only secondarily about Starmer.
