Singapore’s postwar economic miracle was founded on the two sacrosanct principles of meritocracy in society and paternalism in government. Lee Kuan Yew, the city state’s founding father, emphasised the former and practised the latter as he transformed his country from a backward tropical port with no natural resources and livid ethnic divisions into a glittering first world metropolis.

Two years after his death, the eruption of a family feud that pits his eldest son Lee Hsien Loong, the prime minister, against his brother and sister jeopardises not only the first family’s reputation but also the founding ethos that their father held dear.

The feud concerns an extraordinary public statement on Wednesday by Lee Hsien Yang, brother of the prime minister, and Lee Wei Ling, their sister, in which the two say they fear “the use of the organs of state” against them following their father’s death. “We feel big brother omnipresent,” their statement says.