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One loyal MP echoes Apple founder Steve Jobs’ old mantra: “If you want to make everyone happy, don’t be a leader, sell ice cream.”

But the threat to Labour is becoming clearer.

Before the election, the pollster James Kanagasooriam coined the term “sandcastle politics” to describe coalitions that are impressive but liable to be swept away.

For Starmer, YouGov’s poll offers a nightmarish vision of how that could happen:
- 11 per cent of Labour’s 2024 voters have defected to the Liberal Democrats,
- 8 per cent to Reform,
- 6 per cent to the Greens,
- 4 per cent to the Tories and
- 2 per cent to the SNP.

As with the fractured “Boris' coalition”, the risk is that Labour loses votes to everyone, everywhere, all at once.

Rather than owning the common ground, Starmer could prove too progressive for conservatives and too conservative for progressives.