'Tis the season to be jolly - but not for this Nobby-no-mates government

Self-inflicted wounds and systemic challenges have both contributed to Labour's dire levels of unpopularity

- Andrew Rawnsley

It's beginning to feel a lot like Christmas, everywhere you go - except the cabinet. Festive cheer has failed to infuse senior members of the government.

At a seasonal party, one cabinet minister gazed mournfully into his glass before sighing to me: "The government has no friends." Strictly speaking, this is not completely true. About one in six respondents tell pollsters that they would vote Labour if a general election were held tomorrow.

As a general observation, that gloomy cabinet member is spot-on. This is a Nobby-no-mates government.

Even in their darkest hours, Margaret Thatcher or Tony Blair had a praetorian guard of people so committed to the cause that they would defend their heroes by throwing themselves in front of the massed blades of their enemies. It is not just the dire approval ratings that make the Starmer government look so bereft of allies; it is the absence of any visible cheerleaders at Westminster or beyond it.

For that, Sir Keir is copping much of the blame from his party. When seat after seat tumbled to Labour at the 2024 election, a lot of folk thought he had been awarded five years to do more or less as he liked. Now a lot of the same people think he will be lucky to survive at No 10 for another five months. At the final PMQs of the year, Stephen Flynn, the SNP's leader at Westminster, provoked laughter on the opposition benches when he asked the prime minister how he'd be spending his final Christmas in Downing Street.

It is not the case that the country has "fallen out of love" with Labour. It was never in love in the first place.