They really are shooting themselves in the foot here. Yesterday they had better than expect news on the economy and good news on NHS waiting lists that got buried in the potential leadership battle (with the former Health Secretary managing to hide the achievment of his own department). I've heard of burying bad news in the past but burying good news is an interesting tactic.
This is the bit I find really perplexing. They've had sh1t results at the council elections (which mid term governments often do although these were worse). I said since day 1 of this lot in charge that their comms are utterly awful. If KS isn't a great communicator, surely to God there's someone in the party (or someone they can employ) who is.
Right now, if it were me charged with that, I'd be saying something along the lines of
" . . . the results were awful and we know that's telling us something uncomfortable but please judge us by our results since the GE: Minimum wage up, renters rights act, employment act - all of which are testament to our socialist roots, then look at the economic growth (highest in G7), higher pensions, quicker ambulance response times, shorter NHS waiting lists demonstrating our economic credibility and better use of public funds than the last lot, small boat crossings down a third, net migration down demonstrating our recognition of issues that we know are high on the public agenda . . ."
And so on.
Regardless of Starmer's personality, there's more there to shout about than I can recall from the last few years of the Tories
As mentioned up thread they seem to have a pathological desire for in fighting when they really could just take the win and crack on FFS