PRIOR to this summer's General Election, there were predictions, not least from yours truly, that once in government Keir Starmer would soon fall from grace and become very unpopular indeed as his promise of change would be exposed as yet another of the many lies which litter his deeply unprincipled path to power.
However, few could have predicted the speed and intensity of Starmer's plunge into unpopularity.
He needs to tell Tom Daley to move over because no one can take a dive like Starmer.
A new poll published on the eve of Starmer marking 100 days in office has shown that the Prime Minister's approval ratings have reached record lows.
According to the polling company Ipsos, the Prime Minister has a net favourability rating of minus 26, with 52% of those polled disapproving of his leadership.
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His party has shared in Starmer's loss of popularity with Labour's favourability ratings falling from plus 6 upon taking office to minus 21 now.
The only comfort to Labour is that the party is still viewed more favourably than the Conservatives.
However that's not really saying much, a bit like Labour finding solace in the fact that it's not quite as unpopular as anthrax.
Starmer is not the only prime minister who won a landslide majority in an election and found themselves intensely unpopular in their first months in office.
The same happened with Margaret Thatcher.
She became very unpopular with the public in the first year of her government despite winning 339 Commons seats and 43.9% of the popular vote in the Westminster General Election of May 1979.
Starmer will no doubt hope that he can repeat Thatcher's trick of turning around initial unpopularity and secure his power for a decade or more.
Yet the conditions which permitted Thatcher to recover politically from her initial unpopularity will not be repeated for Starmer.
Thatcher's fortunes started to turn around due to the Falklands War, described at the time as a war between two unpopular juntas.
This set off a feverish outbreak of Anglo-British nationalism which the Tories exploited.
Thatcher then benefited from the income from North Sea oil and gas, which funded mass unemployment in Scotland and the North of England while creating an economic boom in London and the South East of England, epitomised by comedian Harry Enfield's Loadsamoney character.
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London saw the explosive expansion of its economy and the glitzy development of London Docklands while Scotland and the North of England suffered from the devastation and destruction of traditional working class communities whose inhabitants were told "get on your bike" and look for work.
However by fostering an economic boom in London on the back of Scotland's natural resources Thatcher was able to create a solid constituency of support which was sufficient to see her win through in two subsequent General Elections.
She was aided in this by the relatively high level of support that the Conservatives enjoyed in terms of share of the popular vote.
Starmer cannot repeat what Thatcher did.
He certainly intends to help himself to Scotland's natural resources, this time in the shape of Scotland's renewable energy.
Starmer's hardline support for Israel is out of step with British public opinion.
A war guaranteed Thatcher's political recovery, it will destroy Starmer's.
Additionally Starmer is starting off from a much lower baseline of support than Thatcher did.
He secured his huge Commons majority thanks to a quirk of the first past the post system.
Labour won its 411 Commons seats on just 33.6% of the popular vote, over 10% lower than Thatcher managed in 1979.
Labour's hold on power has much shallower roots.
Another huge difference is the existence of the Scottish Parliament and a Scotland in which the question of independence is politically mainstream.
Starmer will not be able to help himself to Scotland's natural resources in the way Thatcher did without serious political consequences.
Not even Labour can back Council of Nations and Regions
Although Starmer will not be able to repeat Thatcher's trick of defying political gravity, he does seem set to repeat her trick of making herself almost universally loathed in Scotland.
Today in Edinburgh there is the first meeting of Starmer's wheeze, the Council of Nations and Regions.
Although Labour has insisted that it won't be just a talking shop, it looks suspiciously like a talking shop.
No information has been given on how decisions will be reached by this council, nor, crucially, whether these decisions will be binding on the UK Government.
The meeting includes English mayors, but no representatives from Scottish local governments have been invited.
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Speaking to The National, councillors from City of Edinburgh Council have said that Scots are being “disregarded” and treated as "second-class citizens," they are not even being invited to a meeting attended by representatives of English local authorities held in their own city.
The meeting was originally supposed to be chaired by Sue Gray, Starmer's hurriedly appointed Envoy to the Nations and Regions, but it has been announced at the last moment that Gray won't be in attendance.
She's taking time off, possibly to go and nurse her grievance.
Yet another peer appointed to outdated House of Lords
Evidence of Starmer's perfidy continues to come thick and fast.
Despite his now abandoned promise that he was going to abolish the House of Lords, Starmer has appointed another new peer to a government post.
Former cybersecurity chief Poppy Gustafsson has been given a peerage so she can become Investment Minister, head of the new Office of Investment.
Starmer's grand promise to abolish the House of Lords has been dramatically scaled back to a promise to get rid of the remaining 92 hereditary peers.
Remember when BBC Scotland excitedly told us about Gordon Brown's constitutional review and the plan to replace the Lords with an elected Senate of the Nations and Regions?
We've got Starmer's toothless talking shop instead and the House of Lords remains intact.
That's Starmer's change for you.
This piece is an extract from today’s REAL Scottish Politics newsletter, which is emailed out at 7pm every weekday with a round-up of the day's top stories and exclusive analysis from the Wee Ginger Dug.
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