A couple of months after he was elected Labour leader, and with the Black Lives Matter movement sweeping the globe, Keir Starmer was asked what he thought about the radical Left's latest rallying cry – 'Defund the police!'

It was, Starmer replied, 'nonsense'. 'Nobody should be saying anything about defunding the police, and I would have no truck with that,' he insisted.

On Wednesday, the Black Lives Matter protesters' attention was – unsurprisingly – not on Westminster, and Rachel Reeves' spending review. They had bigger fish to fry, confronting Donald Trump's recently federalised National Guard in the riot-torn streets of downtown Los Angeles.

Which is a pity. Because if they'd opted to put down their bandanas and flags long enough to venture into the Strangers' Gallery at the House of Commons, they would have witnessed what, from their perspective, would have been a very welcome sight. The spectacle of the Prime Minister and the Chancellor announcing they were going to defund the police after all.

They obviously didn't spell it out in those terms. Rachel Reeves successfully resisted the urge to raise a black leather-clad fist in the air and proclaim 'smash the Po-Po!' But the practical effect of her funding settlement was the same.

While the major departments of health, education, defence, local government, work and pensions, energy and business were all benefiting from significant spending increases, the Home Office budget was being cut by more than 2 per cent. And with it financing for front-line police services.

'As rank-and-file officers kit up for night duty this evening, they'll do so knowing exactly where they stand in the Government's priorities,' raged Police Federation acting chairman Tiff Lynch.

'This Chancellor hasn't listened to police officers. She hasn't listened to the Home Secretary. She hasn't listened to the public's concerns about community safety.'

Keir Starmer was pictured taking the knee for George Floyd alongside Angela Rayner in 2020

Lynch's anger could have been dismissed as predictable special pleading. Except it was being echoed across the political spectrum. Sadiq Khan is not exactly noted for his support of heavy-duty policing. Or in the eyes of some, much policing at all. But even he was moved to remark: 'After 14 years of cuts from central government, unless there's a stimulus of money from this Government, we could see a reduction of police officers in London... I remain concerned that this Spending Review could result in insufficient funding for the Met and fewer police.'

Over the past few weeks it's become increasingly difficult to rationalise – on either a political or policy level – the decision-making processes within Downing Street.

But Keir Starmer opting to bend a knee to those who have been furiously demanding resources are removed from the police and channelled into other public services is one of the most bizarre of his premiership.

Until Wednesday, burnishing his CV as Director of Public Prosecutions was a major part of the Prime Minister's strategy. And short of venturing out on the election campaign trail sporting a stetson and a Winchester rifle, it's hard to see what more he could have done to try to bolster his law-and-order credentials.

But now he seems destined to be defined as the Prime Minister who threw open the jails, slashed police funding in real terms and stretched the thin blue line to breaking point.

Obviously all spending rounds require difficult choices. But it's impossible to align the decision to effectively defund the police with No 10's stated intention to use its spending power to reflect the people's priorities.

As one normally loyal minister told me: 'The whole overall funding round process has been completely bonkers. No one has been able to understand the thinking behind it.'

That bemusement is set to extend to the wider electorate. It's clear that Reeves' cuts are going to have a direct impact on operational policing. As Metropolitan Police chief Mark Rowley warned, one immediate impact will be 'stark choices about which crimes we no longer prioritise'.

Is this really how the Chancellor and Prime Minister intend to turn round their political fortunes?

'999, what emergency service do you require… the police? Ah, I'm afraid there's no one available at the moment. But I'm happy to say you will be getting a new nuclear reactor some time around 2035.'

When Keir Starmer looks out of the window of his armour-plated Jaguar, what sort of nation does he actually see?

Last week he authorised cuts to the police. We are told that in the next few weeks he will announce a lifting of the two-child benefit cap. At which point the Tory and Reform social media ads will write themselves. 'Fewer bobbies on the beat. More single mothers. Vote Labour.'

Less than a year ago, Sir Keir still grasped the potential toxicity of his party being perceived to be weak on crime. That's why his election manifesto pledged 'Labour will take back our streets'. And why his Shadow Home Secretary was sent out to commit to 13,000 new neighbourhood officers and PSOs.

But now those promises are set to be torched. Starmer and Reeves are obviously not being driven by the same ideological fanaticism as the formal Defund The Police movement.

Ask any of the Prime Minister's advisers, and they will privately acknowledge he now regrets allowing himself to be photographed taking a knee in solidarity with Black Lives Matter.

But that's literally the agenda they're now pursuing. With the same inevitable consequences.

In those US cities which bowed to the protesters' demands to cut police funding, crime rates rose, police morale collapsed and retention and recruitment rates among officers plummeted.

Chancellor Rachel Reeves seen ahead of her spending review announcement on Wednesday

Minnesota attorney general Keith Ellison (pictured in 2020) said: 'I think allowing this moniker, "Defund the police", to ever get out there was not a good thing'. Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves are soon going to be experiencing similar regrets, writes Dan Hodges

In Minneapolis, where members of the Democratic-led city council vowed to dismantle the entire city force, police numbers halved. 'I think allowing this moniker, "Defund the police", to ever get out there was not a good thing,' Minnesota attorney general Keith Ellison admitted.

Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves are soon going to be experiencing similar regrets.

In her speech on Wednesday, the Chancellor said: 'If people are to feel pride in their community, enjoy their public spaces, and spend time on their high streets, they must feel safe when they do so – safe in the knowledge that when people break the law, they feel the full force of the law.'

What law? Who is going to be there to enforce it? When the Prime Minister is openly advertising he views investment in the police as a lower priority than investing in home insulation,

it's hard to imagine your average vandal and shoplifter quaking in their boots.

'Nobody should be saying anything about defunding the police,' Keir Starmer once said. Now that chant is echoing through the corridors of Downing Street.