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My monologue to on The Times at One with Andrew Neil: There are some images which come to haunt a government and its prime minister, which in retrospect become emblematic of their decline and fall.  Jim Callaghan’s unconvincing attempt to underplay the impact of the 1978/79 winter of discontent — from the sunny Caribbean.  John Major’s efforts to explain away sterling’s unedifying exit from the European exchange rate mechanism in the autumn of 1992 — which still stalked him when he lost by a landslide in 1997.  Theresa May insisting ‘nothing has changed’ — when clearly it had — and not to her benefit.  Boris Johnson’s bumbling attempts to justify Downing Street parties during the Covid lockdown.  Rishi Sunak calling an election in the pouring rain outside 10 Downing Street last summer.  And now Keir Starmer’s uncaring, self-referential performance at PMQs yesterday as a teary Chancellor Reeves sat behind in obvious turmoil. Dark bags under her eyes, tears on her cheeks, a quivering bottom lip, a look of sheer exhaustion across her face. But none of that troubled Starmer.  He preened and pontificated at his patronising worst, batting away questions from Kemi Badenoch. When the Tory leader brought the Chancellor’s misery to his attention he affected not to notice. He certainly offered her no comfort. He even refused to confirm she was secure in her job — that had to be prised out of him later in a BBC interview.  He went off on a riff about some arcane football memory — as politicians anxious to big up their pseudo-working class roots are prone to do these days — while his Chancellor struggled to hold it together.  Lad’s banter eclipsing a woman in distress.  Even as PMQs petered out and other MPs rushed to comfort Reeves, Starmer marched out of the chamber, not so much a look of concern, never mind a caring hug.  In the grand scheme of things, none of this might seem to matter very much. As he spoke sterling slumped and the cost of government debt soared — real events in the real world that could badly affect real people.  But people also remember the personal in politics, which can be as important as the policies. And their takeaway from yesterday — amplified in later broadcasts and in countless social media postings — will stay with them.  An aloof PM, too wrapped up in his own survival to reach out to a colleague in need. A robotic figure, unloved by the country or now even his own party, devoid of empathy. A knight of the realm for whom chivalry is a foreign country.  Starmer will not easily recover from any of this. The country’s fiscal position is dire after his various surrenders, a shedload of tax rises looming this October perhaps even on the same grand scale as last October.  Borrowing maxed out, interest rates stubbornly high, growth depressingly low.  Yet Labour now in thrall to its soft left which wants more borrowing, more tax to pay for more government.  Yesterday could mark the beginning of the end for Starmer and the government. It will not crumble overnight or even in weeks or months. But painful years ahead beckon in which the danger is things only get worse.  Yet this is not just about a Labour PM and a floundering government.  As I watched PMQs yesterday and looked at both frontbenches something dawned on me I had hitherto only vaguely perceived: we are now a country bereft of a credible or competent governing class on either side of the political divide.   Left, right and centre we lack the people and policies to tackle the gathering troubles of our times. As a result, as a nation we are rudderless and without purpose — adrift in a sea of troubles rather than in command of our destiny. And that will not easily or quickly be put right.