The need for a reset this early in his premiership shows Starmer’s Government is rudderless - Ismail Mulla

Voters are rightly asking, where its plan was before getting into Government. Some commentators have criticised Labour for not forming a plan for Government in the 14 years that the party was in the wilderness. In fairness I would ask what Starmer and his inner circle have been doing the past four years since he had the keys to the kingdom.

It’s one thing smashing the lefties in his party as a show of strength. It’s a whole other thing when you have to actually run the country.

The central issue for Labour is that it has come into Government with a whopping majority not because it was bustling with ideas, rather because the Tories completely came off the rails.

I know Starmer’s a big football fan so here’s an analogy, it’s akin to his beloved Arsenal battering an out-of-sorts Everton 5-0, with two of those being own goals and the Merseysiders having two players sent off.

The danger for Labour is that the Conservatives might just get their act together and the next General Election may well be as unpredictable as the Premier League.

The stark reality is that this is a Government that is devoid of ideas and equally devoid of conviction.

Instead it has launched consultation after consultation. Yes, it’s good to consult the public and affected stakeholders on decisions that it plans to take. But is the hood completely empty when it comes to bright, bold ideas?

This is what you get when the managers take control of the party. The whole thing becomes one giant exercise in managing messages, leading to inertia on policy and before too long they lose control of the message as well.

What Labour is learning is that it’s far easier to oppose the Government of the day. Delivery is a whole other ball game.

The Prime Minister compared “focusing the machinery of government” to “turning an oil tanker” and said that “acceptance of managed decline” has “seeped into parts of Whitehall”.

This argument may have held water had Labour not spent its time in Opposition accusing the Tories of shifting the blame onto Whitehall for the ills of the government.

Starmer talks about a “ruthless focus on priorities” but so far the only ruthlessness he has shown is in defenestrating political allies when their support is no longer expedient.

It remains to be seen how these milestones will pan out. But whenever a Government has to roll out a wide-sweeping ‘plan for change’, it suggests a roll of the dice because its policies, or in Labour’s case lack of, has not worked.

The Labour Government has spectacularly squandered its honeymoon period alienating pensioners, farmers and business leaders. You can’t keep everyone happy while in Government but the absence of bold vision will leave voters asking the question what it’s all for?

Starmer said: “This plan for change is the most ambitious yet honest programme for government in a generation.

"Mission-led government does not mean picking milestones because they are easy or will happen anyway – it means relentlessly driving real improvements in the lives of working people.

“Given the unprecedented challenges we have inherited we will not achieve this by simply doing more of the same, which is why investment comes alongside a programme of innovation and reform.”

Labour needs to realise the public is already getting tired of the blame game. The Government seems to believe that it can lift the Coalition’s playbook and replay the greatest hits from the early 2010s.

But the public has had enough of being told how awful the other lot are. There’s a lesson for the Tory party in this as well. If it wants to form an effective Government then it needs to stop shifting blame, take responsibility and come up with considered policies that improve people’s lives. Contrition regarding mistakes the previous Tory government made will be widely welcomed.

It would be churlish to dismiss the current Labour Government just six months in but time is now ticking and this perception of a rudderless administration could well leave Captain Starmer and his crew shipwrecked.