Quickest implosion ever? No, and it's not even close...

Almost one year into the Starmer administration and the question is already being asked: has a government ever crashed so quickly?

- Sean O'Grady

There's no denying the dismal poll ratings in which Labour now regularly runs behind Reform UK, the disappointing election results, mixed signals on the economy, U-turns, disarray in the parliamentary party and talk of "regime change" (in No 10, not Tehran). There is obvious cause for Labour supporters to be disheartened, but some reasons to be cheerful too...

How bad is the decline?

It's not as bad as it looks. On the basis that, at the last general election, Starmer converted Boris Johnson's 2019 Commons majority of 81 into a Labour overall majority of 174, it was indeed a stunning, historic performance – the best "conversion" for any party since the Second World War. However, such a picture flatters to deceive. It was all done with fabulously tepid public support. Labour's vote share was 33.7 per cent, less than any other winning party in modern times, with only about one in five of the electorate expressing positive support.

Keir Starmer's personal ratings were also modest as he went into the general election in 1997. It's true that Labour poll ratings on the eve of the 2024 election were over-optimistic, and it's a little Blair's stellar image, certainly by comparison with, say, Tony hazardous to compare real results with polls. But the overall point remains: Labour were never as loved as we might falsely imagine or discern from the eccentricities of the British electoral system.

But is it still bad?