And just like that we were back in 2009, with a Labour government in power, Oasis set to go off on tour, and the sun shining (except for viewers in Scotland). Happy days were here again in Downing Street.

Except they were not. Yes, the Gallagher brothers are getting back together, making a lot of middle-aged people very happy. And yes, that was a Labour prime minister holding court, but unlike Oasis he was not the bringer of good news. Sir Keir Starmer had discovered a problem, quite a few of them as it turns out, and wanted a word.

The gist of it was that during the election campaign, he had been careful not to promise voters a rose garden. One or two nice blooms, certainly, but nothing Chelsea-standard. Yet when he walked into Downing Street he discovered the previous occupants had taken or killed most of the roses and left the manure.

Now we - that’s you and me and the UK government - had to make the best of it. If we put the work in now everything could be coming up roses and daffodils, sunshine and Santa Claus, in a decade. A decade? Is that all? And you thought Gordon Brown could be dour.

Watching Keir Starmer channel Cameron and Osborne circa 2010 was a dispiriting experience. Why was he doing it now, and so zealously? He had no good news to impart, quite the opposite. Governments don’t usually rain on their own parade; that’s the job of the opposition. There was much talk about doing things differently, restoring trust in politics and politicians.

Yet when it came time for media questions it was like the general election had not happened and the old lot was still in power. One after the other came the accusations. The prime minister was going to break his promises on tax. He was depriving 10 million pensioners of their winter fuel payments. He had refused to lift the two-child benefit cap. He was presiding over a culture of cronyism. Questions were waved away like wasps.

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This was a bad show on several fronts. It is not just that mistakes have happened already on Starmer’s watch. What should be troubling the prime minister is that no one saw them coming, or thought anything was wrong when they came to light.

Take the Downing Street pass given to the Labour donor Lord Alli, since handed back. It would hardly have been the first time a party donor was present in the building, but the security pass meant the invitation was open-ended. It was made possible, moreover, so Lord Alli could host a thank-you reception for other Labour donors to the election campaign. It was, in short, a party event. Downing Street has so far refused to say who signed off on the pass, which is exactly the question that Labour would be asking if it was still in opposition.

The row over the pass also meant attention fell on gifts to Sir Keir from Lord Alli, as set out in the register of MPs’ financial interests. Spectacles to the value of £2485? “Work clothing”, thought to be suits, costing £16,200? You can pay a few gas and electricity bills with that sort of money.

One also wonders why Sir Keir, already on a six-figure salary as leader of the opposition and now prime minister, needs someone to buy him specs. The “glasses for passes” skirmish is hardly up there with the Ecclestone row that took the shine off Tony Blair’s government, but it is the kind of silly thing that stays in people’s minds. It is an own goal he did not need. Speaking of which, is there some reason Sir Keir cannot buy his own tickets for football matches?

Next we come to the ever-growing number of ministerial special advisers, some of them donors, who have taken up positions in the civil service. Again, it is not unknown for ministers to want their own people with them, but the appointment process has to be open and upfront. Special advisers must be identified as such and not simply disappear into the ranks of the civil service, their salaries and actions unknown.

In Scotland a different blame game is being played, albeit one only too familiar to the home crowd. Instead of holding a Tory government in Westminster responsible for everything that has gone wrong, or will go wrong, the Scottish Government has turned its gaze on the new Labour government.

It barely seems like five minutes since Angela Rayner was having tea in Bute House and the talk of the steamie was of a “reset” in the relationship between London and Edinburgh. You’ll have had your entente cordiale, then. It is back to war as usual.

This has been bad politics on the part of Labour both north and south of the border. They have left the stage clear for the SNP to start singing the same tired ditty of victimhood. It wasn’t their fault when a big boy with a blue rosette did it and ran away, and it matters not a jot that the big boy is now wearing a red one.

Most people are wise to that game now. See the general election result for proof. But imagine two more years of this, all the way to the Scottish parliament elections. It would be laughable if the thought was not so unbearable.

Scottish Labour left it till yesterday before it attempted a response. Mistake number one was presenting it as a “dossier” on SNP incompetence. (Dossier? For a Labour document? Why not go the whole hog and say Voldemort’s name?).

Having taken this long to react, Scottish Labour finds itself on the back foot, fending off accusations of “austerity”. Sir Keir, unbidden, has adopted the same defensive posture. Whatever one’s reading of the financial future this is not the ideal way for a prime minister to behave.

There is a line between downplaying expectations and talking down the economy; on the evidence of yesterday Sir Keir is coming perilously close to crossing it.