#Burnham is not the change. He is the adjustment.
This is the necessary interval in which the public is taught to forget how power changed hands. First there is confusion, then repetition, then acceptance.
The questions become tiresome: how did he become Prime Minister, who chose him, when did the country consent? Eventually the machinery of politics depends on one thing above all, that nobody asks anymore.
“Yesterday it was extraordinary. Today it is explained. Tomorrow it will be remembered as inevitable. Then Parliament will reconvene, the benches will fill, the rituals will resume, and we will all go along as before.”
That is how managed democracy hardens into obedience. Not with jackboots at the door, but with a new face on the screen and a population encouraged to move on.
Tony Benn understood that the management team could change while the system remained untouched.
Paul Knaggs, The Heartlands Tribune

