Put Reese Mogg in unopposed, and see if a sharp return to Thatcherite principles reaps any benefits.

Smashing Unite and progressing British Volt etc would be a great start. Remembering as we must that Thatcher wasn't the evil witch most think she was - she was talking about climate change and energy security and facing down threats from the east when Starmer was in short trousers at grammar school. To repeat, GRAMMAR school.

The party would surely by then see the wisdom in unifying around one message and preparing the case to make at the next election.

If not, then the absolute shit show
that would be Starmer The Great Unifier trying to extricate himself from an inconclusive result or weak majority, riven by ongoing splits over Brexit, the Union, all the isms, and under constant attack from the right wing media for any mistep or personal failing, especially in areas requiring statesmanship or diplomacy, having to give real answers every day, every hour, rather than blaming the Tories and being Captain Hindsight/Obvious on a loop, would be both hilarious and prepare the ground quite well for the next Tory Leader to emerge and establish the clear alternative.

It's pretty damn hilarious to me that his very first task as Prime Minister will possibly have to be to guide or even negotiate pay settlements with the unions, while reassuring the markets his Administration knows how to do basic maths.

The voters really won't care if his main (only) defence to having to make deeply unpopular decisions is that the Tories alleged maladministration has tied his hands, just like they really didn't cut the Tories any slack for not having any say over how Gordon Brown handled the 2008 crash or our rainy day fund.

Will the striking bus drivers let Kier Starmer get away with claiming there is no money left and their ideas of how to make up the shortfall won't paas the markets any more than Trussonomics?

No.

Good.

A Kier Starmer giving in to the unions is an easy target at the next election.

A Kier Starmer facing down the unions, is a man who enters the next election with one of his oars already broken.

A Kier Starmer that is indecisive or secretive about his true opinion of and thus future approach to the strikes, is the man you already see before you. A very very easy target.

As always, even on the cusp of power, the unions make sure their political wing looks a decidedly unsafe pair of hands to most swing voters.

Two things are true in politics.

1. Voters swing right in hard times, drifting left when times are good.

2. Voters do not practice the doctrine of, well, why not give the other lot a chance, it can't get any worse. Absent a clear alternative, they go with what they know, or give incumbents a chance.

I've never felt more confident that I am living through the era that finally consigns hard left politics to the dustbin. Not that it has had a sniff of real power here for a very long time anyway.

Starmer can be Blair 2.0, or he can lose.

Scotland is the real problem for Starmer the Great, before and after an election. He probably dreams of being able to be in power but also posess a legitimate reason why he isn't getting the results his politics suggest should be the outcome of his government. It's all the boogie man's fault.

Scotland won't resolve that little conundrum any time soon, not nearly quickly enough to help Starmer escape being the next victim of the natural order of things at the end of his one term, if he even gets that far.

This is the way.