The Conservative shadow cabinet minister looked more cheerful than at any point in the 12 months since the general election. “How did they get into such a mess?” they asked. “What are they going to do?”
The answer was revealed a couple of days later when Keir Starmer and his ministers made a series of emergency concessions on their flagship welfare programme, to prevent the otherwise far-greater ignominy of the programme being voted down in the House of Commons.
