If Labour’s rivals had an open goal opportunity to gloat on the back of last week’s local election results, they have found the government only too happy to put the ball into their own net.

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It was probably too much to hope that Sir Keir Starmer’s rivals could remember the adage about not interrupting an enemy when they are destroying themselves and, indeed, after the King’s Speech on Wednesday, Kemi Badenoch gleefully, and superfluously, told the PM the bleeding obvious that he has not had a very good week.

But nobody was listening, not to her, nor to the poor King, as moments before the Monarch had made his ceremonial procession across town, news had leaked that Wes Streeting was preparing a leadership challenge.

Eyes were not on Charles III but darting around the Lords for signs........

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