Numbers matter in politics.  Arithmetic matters.  For all our elected tribunes – including a Prime Minister who came to office less than two years ago with a majority of 174, gifted by voters fleeing from the Tories. 

And here’s another figure.  The UK economy grew by 0.6 per cent in the first three months of this year, prompting a fretful Chancellor to declare that her endeavours – and those of the PM – are working. 

So what has gone so hideously wrong?  Firstly, other sums.  Inflation and the cost of living.  The Micawber principle which foretells misery for families where income falls perilously short of expenditure. 

Folk are anxious and angry.  They look to the PM and find vacillation and vacuum where they need certainty and reassurance. 

Asked to comment on the PM on telly the other night, I resorted, as I so often do, to a Scots word.  That word is “fushionless”.  It means vapid or lacking in verve.  Sadly, it fits all too well.  

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But there is another reason why Sir Keir Starmer is in deep trouble.  Which is that politics is not driven solely by sums.  It is motivated by momentum.  By political standing.  By a sense of who is in and who is out.  By a generic calculation of power. 

You know, you just know, when an individual or a party have lost their way.  Sir Keir Starmer still leads the squad which gained that huge majority.  But he has palpably, discernibly lost........

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