To try and justify the incompetence and sheer hard-faced behaviour of Starmer and his government.
They were sold the magic beans. The shiny new Labour government were going to right all of the wrongs. The adults would be in charge, so they were told. What they have got is a bunch of hypocrites who couldn't wait to put the boot into the old and the vulnerable, and have pushed their snouts firmly into the freebie trough. Sleaze follows them around like a bad smell and they have only been in power for a matter of weeks. It's not exactly what they were expecting, but they feel a desperate need to try and self-justify it now. A form of buyer's remorse or cognitive dissonance or maybe just plain old embarrassment.