Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves were so desperate to win the election that they deprived themselves of the best tools for fixing their bleak ‘inheritance’

It saddens those of us who waited so long to see the back of the last lot that the new government has been so inept in its first 100 days. And it is particularly distressing that, while one hopes one’s criticisms are constructive and made with the best of intentions, the Starmer government has been such easy meat for the rightwing press.

It was the economist James Ball who used to say: beware of the OBE. He was not referring to the Order of the British Empire: those initials stood for One Big Explanation. For Keir Starmer, and Rachel Reeves, the one big explanation for their troubles is “the inheritance” – far worse than they expected.