Business confidence is plunging. Retailers are slashing prices in an attempt to drum up sales. Higher energy bills have arrived amid continued anger about the means-testing of winter fuel payments to pensioners.

No question, the government’s message that times are tough and likely to get tougher is cutting through, but not perhaps in the way ministers intended. One snapshot of public opinion this week showed voters would actually prefer Rishi Sunak’s administration to the current one. Given that the Tories suffered the biggest drubbing in their history only three months ago, that’s quite an achievement.

So has Labour blown it? The Tories clearly hope so, and have started to talk up the possibility of returning to power at the next election. The reckless way in which the government has squandered its political capital has convinced some in the Conservative party that their time in the wilderness will be brief.

For this to happen, Keir Starmer’s government would need to face more than teething troubles. Rather, it would have to face a constant uphill struggle – as was the case for Harold Wilson and Jim Callaghan between 1974 and 1979, or for the Tories between 2019 and 2024. Boris Johnson’s honeymoon was cut short by the arrival of the Covid-19 pandemic early the next year, and the Tories........

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