“In the first two years or so of government, we were right to level with the public about the challenges that we faced as a country, the legacy we inherited, the international situation, but what we didn’t do was convince them about the future and how things can be better.

“We need to do that, and to be really clear… about not going back to the status quo.”

Keir Starmer speaking to The Observer at the weekend.

The predictions proved correct. The local and devolved elections were as painful for Labour as the response was inevitable.

Ministers speak on the media rounds of the need to reflect and listen to voters. Some MPs, alarmed by the scale of the defeat, call for Keir Starmer to go. The PM himself says he’s not going anywhere.

And strikingly, he spoke on Friday of his determination to break with the status quo ‘once and for all’. Action is needed and act he did. By bringing Gordon Brown and Harriet Harman back into government the next day.

I have huge admiration for Brown and Harman. But their return masterfully sums up how the public sees the PM, pledging to break with the past one day and inviting a former PM back into the fold the next.

The media lapped it up, providing relief in a relentless news cycle. But talking about the election results as a big moment – or a ‘seismic earthquake’ as Reform weirdly did – misses the bigger truth which has screamed back at us for years.