When will Keir Starmer realise how unpopular he is?

British politics can only be understood right now if one realises that Keir Starmer is presiding over a “landslide minority” government: two thirds of the seats on one third of the vote.

On the parliamentary maths, things are about as rosy as can be for Labour. It has more than 400 MPs and the Tories just 121. The Lib Dems – in effect Labour’s reserve fuel tank – have a bumper crop of 72 MPs from last July. No other party grouping gets into double figures.

This is the sort of dominance which traditionally betokens an administration fully in charge of the zeitgeist and able to implement radical change with justified confidence. Think Thatcher post-1983 or Blair post-1997. 

That is certainly how Labour has behaved in its first six months. Imperious decisions from the Chancellor Rachel Reeves about the winter fuel allowance and a bumper tax-raising budget have been accompanied by Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson implementing