That Starmer fella...

'no that's absolutely fine and the govt shouldn't have stepped in'

Literally no one is saying that this is "absolutely fine". The point is that the council fucked up, and should be held to account, but that the people who should be appointed to correct the mess should be democratically appointed by the people of Liverpool. It's also a devastating self-own for Labour to effectively say 'we can't manage this problem, send in the Tories'.

Here's noted hard left Leninist Andrew Adonis making just that point in the Times (behind a paywall so forgive the combo of quote text and image):

John Dewey got it right: “The solution to the ills of democracy is more democracy”, it is not the suspension of democracy. Which is why the answer to Liverpool’s governance problems is to elect a new mayor as soon as possible, not for central government to send in commissioners and suspend the normal statutory operation of a large part of local government in the city, as Robert Jenrick has instructed.