Relish and dread as Starmer 'shambles' hangs over Scotland and Wales elections

Relish and dread as Starmer 'shambles' hangs over Scotland and Wales elections7 minutes agoShareSaveAdd as preferred on GoogleLaura KuenssbergSunday with Laura KuenssbergBBC"We're living the dream," a minister jokes. Labour might have to rely on black humour over the next couple of weeks.Each day brings a vast set of elections closer - local tests in England, and national ballots in Wales and Scotland - votes another cabinet minister frets "will be a disaster".We've been travelling around Wales this week, and Scotland last week, talking to the politicians vying for power, and the most important people of all - the public who'll make the choice on 7 May.Just when Labour needs to be going hammer and tongs in a campaign, instead, almost every day brings fresh embarrassment to the prime minister over his decision to give Lord Mandelson one of the finest jobs in the land - our man in Washington.Ructions in Whitehall. Rancour in Labour. A sense the government doesn't seem to have a grip. How big is the impact in Wales and Scotland of Sir Keir Starmer's woes? "It's just so huge," says a senior Labour MP who's been knocking on voters' doors in recent days.But these elections aren't remotely all about the government's recent horror show – we'll come to that in a second.Voters will decide who makes important devolved decisions affecting the lives of millions of people - the kind of schools kids go to; the standard of the care patients receive when they are sick; even income tax rates.Both the Labour administration in Cardiff and the SNP government in Edinburgh have been in charge for a remarkably long time - Labour since 1999, the SNP since 2007. It's perhaps not surprising then voters we met in both countries expressed a similar level of disillusion with the status quo, frustration with a patchy track record on public services, and a sense devolution itself has not been all it...