Has someone been putting “Trump Potion” into Keir Starmer’s porridge? Because for the past seven days, Mr Flip-Flop has actually been looking like a leader – talking about doing stuff that will help this country and its people. I know – shock horror! He’s started rampaging through what until now has been Tory territory, claiming he’s going to take on the bloated civil service which has exploded by 130,000 since the referendum and he’s lambasted it as “overstretched, unfocused and unable to deliver security”.

He also says he’s going to slash £5billion from Britain’s humungous welfare bill by taking away many sickness and disability benefits and, while he didn’t actually call some of the people claiming these benefits “skivers”, he wasn’t far off. He then announced the abolition of NHS England, one of the worst and most useless quangos, and has promised the money will go directly to treating patients. And as NHS England employs 18,600 office staff, that should be a hell of a lot of money. And that quango, says Starmer, will be the first of many in what he promises will be a bonfire of them.

Can this really be the bloke who’s been branded the worst PM in the last 50 years and who’s cocked up every single thing he’s touched since he came into office – immigration, the economy, the justice system. He’s giving away the Chagos Islands, he’s alienated business together with all pensioners and farmers?

Until this week, Starmer looked like he was on a fast train to political oblivion. But having imbibed the Trump Elixir, it looks like everything’s changing – or is it? I say “looks like” because we all know Stramer talks a great game. Look at all the promises he made pre-election and then broke the minute he got the keys to No 10.

So, let’s look at NHS England – are the 18,600 people there actually going to lose their jobs or are they going to be shunted off to some other NHS Trust on the same wages so that no money will be saved at all? I ask, because when the equally useless, Public Health England, was closed it suddenly morphed into UKHSA and all PHE staff were transferred there. Is that what’s going to happen with NHS England?

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Maybe his promise of a quango bonfire would be more convincing if he scrapped UKHSA as well, because it’s even more bloated and useless than NHS England was.

The thing is, I don’t trust Starmer as far as I can throw him, and I think what he and his oppos are now doing is trying to save their own backsides rather than the country by announcing policies they know will appeal to the furious masses who feel they’ve been betrayed by Labour.

Do I really believe Starmer’s going to slash sickness and disability benefits (which he absolutely should) when great swathes of his party are already kicking off about it? Is he really going to pare back the state when historically Labour’s very reason for existing has been to expand it?

Because the bellyaching from the civil service, the unions and health workers has already started. They can’t quite believe what their supposedly left-wing leader is saying because it’s against everything Labour is about. I LOVE the fact Starmer is taking a leaf out of Trump’s book but, on his past record, do I really believe he’ll deliver on these promises?

I don’t – but I very much hope I’m wrong.