YouGov’s latest poll shows no pick-up in personal ratings for Keir after his re-launch, in fact they have gotten worse.. William Hague took pity and gave his advice for Keir to Sophy Ridge on Sunday:

“It’s a very thankless task [being LOTO] unless people think you are about to become Prime Minister and people will try and push you around all the time and try to – we’ve just seen this with the speech that Keir Starmer gave in the last few days – try to over-hype what you’re about to say: ‘This is a relaunch’.

Then you end up taking part accidentally in a relaunch of yourself and then of course, everybody is disappointed and a few weeks’ later you have another relaunch and you end up looking a bit ridiculous.  So, I think it is sometimes better to just keep your head down for a bit if the government is doing well and let that wash over you and still be there when the atmosphere has changed.”

Hague would know…