In fairness to Keir Starmer, it took some nerve to turn up and tell deflated Labour candidates what had gone wrong at the local elections when even David Lammy, not a man know for his awareness of his immediate surroundings, had admitted that one of the most regular problems on the doorstep was the Prime Minister himself.

Yet this was precisely what he did. Having Keir Starmer turn up to your Labour post apocalyptic pity party is a bit like being hit by a car only for the person who ran you over to come to your funeral and give a lecture on road safety. It would have been reasonable for Starmer to stay blockaded in No. 10, having taken a sizeable number of sausages, sorry, hostages and only communicate via Darren Jones and a megaphone. We might, however, still come to that: he may well have chosen to get in early, while Labour were still only three figures........

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