Last week, Tay Kheng Soon, architect and author, was the guest at a Jom Cakap event. The octogenarian Tay, a planning and urban development pioneer who’s worked alongside every government since independence, narrated many stories about his conflicts and dealings with “Kuan Yew” over the years.

One audience comment gave him pause. Even though Lee was a strong personality, he was always apparently willing to “sit down and talk to people who had a different view”; but today’s government is not, this person argued, for it allegedly often uses POFMA to label as lies what’s actually just “another point of view”. What did Tay think about the contrast between these two approaches to dialogue?

“It’s such a complicated issue, I don’t know where to start,” Tay began, for once without a quick-fire response. He then said that we are living through a transitional moment, which are characteristically “confusing” and “internally contradicting”. He was referring to the handover of power from the so-called 3G (third generation) of leaders in the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) to the 4G, led by Lawrence Wong, prime minister. “In any kind of political system there is always the good cop and the bad cop. I think Lawrence Wong is trying very hard to be a good cop. But if he is to succeed, I think he needs a bad cop who is a bit more subtle.”