The cut to the winter fuel allowance, rows over ministers accepting gifts and donations, conflicted advisers working at the heart of Downing Street, and now “Sausagegate”.

If any lingering doubts remained, then last week’s lead balloon Labour conference in Liverpool confirmed that the honeymoon period for the new government is well and truly over.

The euphoria that accompanied the party’s landslide victory in June’s General Election, the ditching of the feeble and discredited Rwanda migrant policy, and Sir Keir Starmer’s sure-footed handling on the summer riots, all now seem like ancient history.

Irrespective of the detail of his early policy decisions - that axing the fuel subsidy helped to offset the ending of years of disruptive and financially damaging strikes in the health service and on the railways or that politicians of all parties have always accepted gifts and donations - a defining narrative has now been set.

Read more by Carlos Alba:

Just as Tony Blair’s reputation never recovered from his exempting Formula One from a ban on tobacco advertising just months after he entered Downing Street in 1997, so Sir Keir’s sheen of ethical rectitude has been irredeemably tarnished by a series of tawdry revelations.

Blair’s decision was perceived as a backhand to racing boss Bernie Ecclestone for his £1 million donation to New Labour and, similarly, the new Prime Minister is now seen as in hock to an assortment of backscratchers and palm greasers, chief among them the party’s wealthy donor, Lord Alli.

The man whose electoral success was built on successfully portraying the Conservatives as out-of-touch and in it for themselves - as operating one set of rules for themselves and another for........

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