Sir Keir Starmer has had quite the week.

Firstly, last Tuesday, we had the eventual delivery of a well-trailed speech in the garden of Downing Street. Sadly, the contents of the speech were as previewed.

The message from Sir Keir was that things are in even worse shape than Labour “ever imagined”. He talked about things getting worse before they get better. The Labour leader also spoke about “tough” choices. He went on about Labour’s “difficult decision to mend the public finances”, and “unpopular decisions”.

Sir Keir also talked about a “painful” Budget in October and having “no other choice”.

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It was an utterly dismal speech.

And, as observed in my column in The Herald last Wednesday, “it was difficult to shake the notion that we were back in 2010 again”.

The column continued: “The parallels with the start of the David Cameron and George Osborne administration seemed crystal clear in the sense that the line seems to be that things are bad, are going to get worse and everyone will just have to accept that.”

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And it pointed out Sir Keir does have choices. It noted he has chosen to continue with the fiscal constraints put in place by the economically........

© Herald Scotland