I am going to shock Spectator readers and say something in praise of the government. There is one area where they are genuinely, consistently impressive, precise even. Received wisdom states that an institution is generally either malign or incompetent. The Starmer ministry time and again hits the absolute sweet spot where it can reasonably be regarded as both by the maximum number of people possible.

In the House today we turned to a classic of this genre of cock-up: the cancellation of mayoral elections. As everyone knows, cancelling elections is always a sign of a good and healthy government. If anything, Keir Starmer is too popular; I suspect he’s just cancelling one of the first proper verdicts his government would face at the ballot box to give the other parties a chance to catch up. It really is an absurd and dangerous state we are in: a sort of Muppets 1984.

Even the minister had to admit the situation was less than ideal, however, as ever, it couldn’t be the government’s fault. There are no prizes for guessing who was to blame: ‘We are doing it because of the state of local government which the party opposite left.’ Now........

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