Starmer says he’ll make tough decisions – but will he say the unsayable on trickiest issues?

This government believes that focusing on short-term politics – which create new long-term problems – is “unforgiveable”. And it seems that genuinely, ministers want to get to grips with problems that have been building up in the country for many, many years.

Yet, there is of course a limit to what they can do.

One senior figure acknowledged, “an enormous majority gives a massive advantage which is political stability – that means you can do difficult things.”

But addressing many of those long term problems is hard without a willingness or ability to spend a lot more cash, or take money away from other parts of the state.

It’s “much easier when you have the money of Thatcher 1983-87 and Blair 2001-2007”, one formal official suggests.

When public finances are in trouble, they continue, “maybe it’s the right call to try to get growth first”, rather than ending up with more stubborn problems in a second term.

They remark acidly: “In a post-ideological age, no governments want to tackle these issues. The last one had 14 years to do so and didn’t.”

But if we are to believe this government’s proclamations that they really want to pursue long-term solutions for the country’s ills, perhaps more of the unsayables will need to be said out loud.

Sir Keir Starmer is making the case that ignoring problems in the long term is part of the reason for what has gone wrong.

But when he vowed to do the “difficult things now”, the reality for any prime minister is that the list of difficult things can never be complete.