The odds are stacked against the talented Mr Streeting

Being a good communicator is not a superficial skill in politics.

- JOHN RENTOUL

It is fundamental. Tony Blair wrote in his memoir: “When people say to me, ‘Oh, So-and-So, they don’t believe in anything, they’re just a good communicator’, as a statement about politics, it’s close to being an oxymoron, certainly for the top person. At the top, the scrutiny is microscopic. It is soul-penetrating.”

One of the biggest problems Keir Starmer has is that he has been subjected to that soul-penetrating scrutiny... and found wanting.

He struggles to get his case across, zigzagging from promising incremental change - a 10-year project for a government inheriting a wasteland - to promising to overturn the status quo as a matter of urgency.

Wes Streeting would do a better job of this essential part of being a prime minister, who is not just an administrator but a teacher, empathiser and leader. Communication is not an optional extra on top of policy: being able to explain what the government is going to do and why is the precondition of success.