This week has shown how dangerous a directionless government is

As the Tories sew discord internally and externally, the wait for an election is actually causing harm.

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Nature abhors a vacuum. And nothing is currently more vacuous than this government. We saw that with the paper-thin King’s Speech at the start of the week. The danger was demonstrated yesterday.

I was actually in Westminster yesterday. We had a space there where we were rehearsing Venom. I’ve been through a few scary protest times before. An intern I was responsible for was punched by a drunk person who had been on a Countryside Alliance march in 2004. A friend was in Parliament when it was locked down during a knife attack.

But I am a bit too used to seeing lots of police and things occasionally kicking off in Westminster. Especially since Brexit and the endless tussles after that. So it was interesting for me to see it through the eyes of my fellow creatives - who were not used to seeing so much trouble up close and found it deeply disturbing.

What I am not used to, is a Home Secretary who has made the calculation that it is better politically to inflame tensions than to reduce them. It would be unfair to say that none of the far right protestors who stormed police protecting the cenotaph would have been there without Suella Braverman’s behaviour this week. But it is also hard to disagree that that crowd might well have been smaller and significantly less hyped up if some of the didn’t see themselves as part of an army in an ongoing war of words between the Home Secretary and the police.

But Suella alone is not to blame for where we are now. This crisis goes deeper than one bad actor (but before Nadine gets excited, I am afraid you won’t find “The Movement” behind the paywall). It’s a rotten symptom of government inertia.