“Just so devastatingly crap” was the pithy and rather brutal view of one Labour MP in touch with me. It was a prescient review given the torrent of public criticism from his own colleagues that was about to be begin.
Many of those MPs cannot shake a sense Sir Keir is repellent to too many voters just as Labour wrestles with how to take on Reform UK.
But there are plenty of other Labour MPs who look on in horror at the implosion they are witnessing and will be called upon to publicly defend, when they would much rather it didn’t happen at all.
“A lot of us are watching this slightly aghast. With a war; an economy struggling due to Iran; market gilt movements etc. I’m still of the view that stability is a premium you give up at your peril,” one told me.
How is the prime minister viewing all this? I have spoken to people who have been involved in conversations with him in recent days. They tell me that he has long been resolute about wanting to carry on, adamant that there is a genuine risk to the party and the country of a protracted leadership contest, which will deliver a successor with a “very questionable mandate” as one friend put it.
In other words, unlike Sir Keir, his successor on taking office won’t have won a general election.
But it is also now true that the arithmetic and sentiment the prime minister confronts are bleak and getting darker.
“It’s clearly not good,” one cabinet ally who would rather this was not happening acknowledged.
And already bad blood oozes from the Labour movement. Rival leadership camps are briefing against each other. The blame game for their current mess is under way.
And now Sir Keir confronts the most awkward and painful of days – beginning with the most awkward and painful of meetings.
Tuesday morning begins with a cabinet meeting. Assembled around that famous table, Sir Keir’s handpicked top team, who now disagree about how long their boss should last in his job.