Does Keir Starmer think we're stupid? Does he think we don’t see through him? Ask the average voter what irritates them most about politicians, and you’ll always get the same complaint: politicians don’t answer questions. And Starmer is, and has always been since he first entered politics, among the very worst. But he and his colleagues are now doing something even more reprehensible: using weaselly words in a stupid attempt to deceive us. So, as well as the lies at the last election, like “smash the gangs”, “country before party” and the most laughable of the lot, “integrity”, we got “no tax rises for working people” and “no increase in national insurance”.

Then, after Reeves’ first, catastrophic budget, with enormous tax rises on working people and a gigantic rise in employers’ national insurance, Labour said: Ah! But farmers and small businesses are not working people (yeah, right!) and fiscal drag (which brings millions more into the higher tax band) is not technically speaking a tax rise. And we didn’t specifically say that we wouldn’t raise national insurance on businesses. If you got the wrong impression, that’s your fault not ours.

What a disgraceful stunt to pull. Integrity? What a laugh.

But the trouble is that if you deceive people once, those same people won’t be deceived again. So, when the Prime Minister and Chancellor came up with another weaselly, slippery turn of phrase this weekend when asked about tax rises in the budget, “the manifesto stands”, there isn’t a single person in the country, not a single one, who believes them.

If the government had no intention of breaking its manifesto commitments, Starmer and Reeves would have said so. They’d have spelled it out, leaving no room for squirmy manoeuvring. They’d have simply stated: “We guarantee that we will not raise income tax, VAT or employees’ national insurance in the budget”.

But these characters don’t know how to be honest. So, they concoct a form of words that allows them loads of deceiving wriggle room. And when, come the budget, they raise taxes, they’ll say: Ah, we didn’t rule it out; we said that the manifesto ‘stood’, which it did at the time; if you got the wrong impression that’s your fault, not ours.

Labourites loudly proclaimed that Boris Johnson was a dishonest politician. But there has never been a more deceitful, slippery, untrustworthy bunch than this lot. Yes, they managed to pull the wool over some voters’ eyes at the last election.

But since then, they’ve lost half of their vote share. Their support is going off a cliff. Because they’ve been found out. Yet they continue with their sly slipperiness. They never learn. They are incapable.

Well, the sooner they’re dumped out of office the better. The sooner Labour has another 14 years, and preferably more, in the wilderness, the better the country will be. The voters have stopped believing them. We know we can’t trust our own government. What a terrible situation to be in.