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A government whose policies have burned 71 people alive in a tower block, tried to deport black citizens, denied women cancer screening, lost 5 ministers in 6 months and put a man who sold fireplaces in charge of the military would normally expect a drubbing at the local elections.

And the official opposition, surrounded by goals not so much open as horizontal with longing, would normally enjoy a once-in-a-lifetime triumph. But these are not normal times.

Instead we live in a time when the highly-respected British Medical Journal reports 10,000 extra deaths in England and Wales in the first weeks of 2018, says they may be linked to Tory austerity, and yet it's the Labour leader who's called disgusting for mentioning it.

We live in a time when a former Mayor of London being investigated for anti-Semitism sees no reason not to keep talking rubbish about Hitler. When Jews born and bred in the Labour movement rip up their party membership cards, when lifelong Tories despair at the incompetents in Downing Street, and when the principle issue affecting all our lives isn't even up for debate.

The local elections should matter more than a national one. They decide where new houses are built, what planning permissions are approved, how often the bins are emptied and whether anybody comes round to check on granny. Yet turnout is usually low, and pundits will tell you they're just a weather vane to see how the national picture could change.

And these local elections show the local and national picture, for once, is the same as it's been since 2010. Stalemate.

(Image: AFP)

Every loss was offset by some sort of gain. Labour lost the Jews of Barnet but gained the good burghers of Plymouth. The Tories grabbed hold of Nuneaton, but lost Trafford. The Lib Dems can crow wildly about taking control of Richmond but the fact they lost it in the first place was sort of amazing.

Nobody won, so everyone declared victory. Even UKIP, which was annihilated, tried to pretend that being compared to the Black Death is a nice bit of PR.

It's like voters are paralysed. As though our pencils, poised over a ballot paper, are in hands clenched so tight they cannot function. And there is a very good reason for that - it's because our politicians are frozen in precisely the same way.

Oh, they can wiggle to the left or right. But they don't seem able to perform a decisive stroke, to form a bold new policy, launch a strong campaign or even drive through minor changes, like agreeing to pay for non-flammable tower block cladding all over the country.

And it all comes back to Brexit.

(Image: Getty)

Oh, come on! How can a national decision taken two years ago be interfering with the expression of an opinion on how often the bins are emptied? Well, allow me to explain.

Brexit is the overriding concern of the entire governmental machine. The Prime Minister dreams about it, her Cabinet war over it, and civil servants are getting sucked up to run new departments desperately trying, and failing, to prepare for it.

It is occupying all the bandwidth in Westminster. Legislation is stalling, other policies are being swept aside to provide Brexit with more time and resources, and there's no space in the national conversation for much else. As a result, all other news - and news seeps into our minds whether you pay attention or not - is reduced to coverage of crises, crimes and cock-ups. There is little to no investigation, analysis or thought.

That blinkered panic filters down to local government. They don't know where funds are coming from, what their leaders want or promise, and consequently feel and act like freelancers. A win or loss is local and tiny, and boils down to tree-cutting programmes or bus service cuts which are plainly stupid but happen because of the uncertainty from above.

(Image: PA)

That uncertainty starts at the top, with Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn. Theresa leads a party for older voters who are firm in their opinions, and she can't decide whether they're racist or not. As a result, she decides one day that Windrush doesn't matter and the next that it's a disgrace, and the same happens with the magic money tree which doesn't exist yet sprouted £1billion to buy off the bigots of Northern Ireland.

Corbyn meanwhile leads a party for young voters who like the European Union, and he's an old man who hates it. He is a fervent anti-racist who is incapable of telling anti-Semites even to shut up, and is quite happy to spend 5 hours on the M5 for a foggy photo opportunity on Plymouth Hoe because it's about as far as he could get from Barnet without being in the actual sea.

Plymouth City Council changes hands all the time. You might as well sit on a play park roundabout and claim victory every time you go past the slide.

And if you still doubt me, consider what difference a clear decision on Brexit would mean, both locally and nationally.

If the Tories were able to present a blueprint that provided prosperity, jobs, border control, trade deals and a bright international future Theresa May would be unstoppable. She'd be looking at a sea of blue councils across the countryside, pockets of support in unthinkable places like Hull and Manchester, an EU on bended knee and a Labour Party that could do no more than insist futilely it was all Jeremy's idea.

And if Labour were able to do what 65% of its supporters wanted, while seizing 39% of Tory and 68% of Lib Dem votes and back Remain, we would now be talking about a leader who appeals to 16.8m people, a Red tidal wave in the cities and the shires, and Tories forced to adopt a position so right-wing and recalcitrant the party conference would be held in solitary confinement.

Brexit matters, even locally. It matters in the maths of voting in a local mayor as well the national subconscious. Brexit has paralysed us all, yet is still thundering on like a clown behind the wheel of a steam roller.

There's 10 months and three weeks to go before our self-imposed Brexit 'deadline'. And only 5 months until an October 18 meeting with the EU which is supposed to be for tying up "loose ends" - that's all future British trade with the biggest market on Earth, all immigration controls, the future adoption of EU rules and regulations and what, exactly, is going to happen at 300 border crossings in Northern Ireland.

They're not so much loose ends as loose fundamentals. Added to that, the civil service says that whatever deal we reach, if we reach one, cannot be implemented in time. The Brexit hardliners have less than a year to actually read the Article 50 they said was inviolate and realise it's more of a negotiable guideline, and the rest of us have all the time in the world to realise three basic truths:

1) You were asked to vote for a dream 2) That dream is not reality 3) We need a new ballot

A clear binary choice. Two parties, two leaders, two possible futures. Not two parties who offer different versions of the same cock-up, where our only choice is what sort of racism we want smeared on it.

Corbyn and May will both go into this weekend quietly congratulating themselves it wasn't worse. And for Britain this is the worst they could possibly do, because when politics is paralysed the whole country gets stuck.