This comment gives me a chance to expand on something. I am patronising! I am also:

- Condescending
- Pompous
- Contemptuous
- Scathing
- Sneering
- Arrogant
- Self-absorbed
- A windbag

And much much else, and I always have been. Seriously: have you only just noticed?! https://twitter.com/mabeloo/status/1248487168902713344

I was also all of these things last year: when I was saying things most of my followers wanted to hear. Strangely, there were no complaints (and still aren't) when I was/am all of those things towards:

- Tories
- Centrists
- Blairites
- FBPEers
- Celebrities
- Journalists

Instead, it was "yes Shaun! You tell 'em Shaun!" It's almost comical.

For the record, my world view has NOT changed. All that's changed is my short term prescription. The long term position - this system is unsustainable, we need radical change - hasn't altered at all.

My short term prescription has changed because there just aren't anything like enough people out there willing to vote for a pure left wing platform. My long term prescription remains the same because in time, there will be: especially as the system continues to collapse.

"The crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the new cannot be born; in this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appear".

Those clinging to the old will find that centrifugal forces cannot be resisted. Those demanding the new still can't articulate properly what it will look like and how it will benefit enough of the electorate. But in time, that'll change.

Even though I'm enthusiastically pro-Starmer (and even, because getting Trump out is so critical, pro-Biden), I hugely admire those trying to put the new into action. People with the vision to re-imagine the future. People like Aaron Bastani or Grace Blakeley.

But I also admire the pragmatism of AOC: who is absolutely clear in the frantic need to vote for Biden, despite having fervently supported Sanders.

These things always take time. It can be frustrating, infuriating, it can feel like nothing will ever change... but change, it will

I always think the best football managers have one eye on the present, the other on the future. Managers like Ferguson, Guardiola, Klopp or Pochettino. I feel the same about political leaders. Labour have to provide united, coherent opposition AND project the future.

Quite a common criticism of Corbyn was, essentially, that he wasn't looking forwards... but looking back. You can say what you like about that: his ideas have been around ever since the war. But they were never likely to move enough people to vote for them.

Similarly, nor is some rehashed, half-baked Blairism: a one-off project for a completely different time. The left has to come up with something new, not old... but also to be competent and professional in the meantime, as this period of transition continues.

Someone I know - who has been right about bloody everything in the last few years - thinks that by 2030, the world will be completely unrecognisable in a way nobody can even imagine yet. In a very positive way, I should add.

Slowly, very slowly, the old is drifting away. The very very new will ultimately replace it. But in the meantime, a variety of morbid symptoms will continue to appear... and so will my arrogance, long-windedness and pomposity.