And just like that we were back in 2009, with a Labour government in power, Oasis set to go off on tour, and the sun shining (except for viewers in Scotland). Happy days were here again in Downing Street.

Except they were not. Yes, the Gallagher brothers are getting back together, making a lot of middle-aged people very happy. And yes, that was a Labour prime minister holding court, but unlike Oasis he was not the bringer of good news. Sir Keir Starmer had discovered a problem, quite a few of them as it turns out, and wanted a word.

The gist of it was that during the election campaign, he had been careful not to promise voters a rose garden. One or two nice blooms, certainly, but nothing Chelsea-standard. Yet when he walked into Downing Street he discovered the previous occupants had taken or killed most of the roses and left the manure.

Now we - that’s you and me and the UK government - had to make the best of it. If we put the work in now everything could be coming up roses and daffodils, sunshine and Santa Claus, in a decade. A decade? Is that all? And you thought Gordon Brown could be dour.

Watching Keir Starmer channel Cameron and Osborne circa 2010 was a dispiriting experience. Why was he doing it now, and so zealously? He had no good news to impart, quite the opposite. Governments don’t usually rain on their own parade; that’s the job of the opposition. There was much talk about doing........

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