After a hard day of woke, tofu-eating activism, many civil servants like to unwind in front of a movie. So when a colleague asked me how I felt about Labour winning the election, I couldn’t help thinking about that opening scene from Dune. You know, the one in which the oppressed indigenous Fremen people suddenly find that their obscenely wealthy overlords, the Harkonnens, have abandoned the crumbling infrastructure of the desert planet Arrakis, for something like a well earned holiday in Mustique or the Cayman Islands. Anyway, the resulting transfer of power (spoiler alert!) doesn’t go particularly well.

Dune is, of course, just a piece of space opera, but it is nonetheless a handy reminder of why, after 14 years of galloping and often otherworldly Tory chaos, it is so important that Labour are prepared for a likely return to government.

It’s easy to forget that the UK is unusual – some might say bonkers – in that the leader of the election-winning party takes possession of No 10 literally overnight. Not so in the US, which famously takes a couple of months to complete the transition process. Nor in most European countries, which (with the exception of Belgium) at least take a few weeks to hand the keys over.

But take it from someone who’s been around government since the days of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, including the first faltering weeks of the 2010 coalition government: come polling day later this year, our battered public services can’t afford........

© The Guardian