Starmer is Labour’s Iain Duncan Smith

After a gruelling election campaign the most important thing to do is to have a rest and have a think. Everyone is exhausted and things done in the heat of the moment are liable to be ill-considered.

During my own brief time in electoral politics, I learned this the hard way. I played a leading role in an idiotic falling out at the top of Ukip after it secured almost four million votes but just one seat in the 2015 general election. A more seasoned colleague went on holiday and later described to me how he had watched the unedifying feuding unfold on a smartphone from his balcony while sipping gin and tonics and staring at the Med.

Michael Gove and Boris Johnson learned a similar lesson when they fell out after the 2016 EU referendum, resulting in both of them sustaining disabling damage that sank their Tory leadership hopes and lumbered the country with three years of political constipation under Theresa May.