error installing or deleting single package in *Packages* buffer

[Eric S Fraga <e.fraga@ucl.ac.uk>]

I updated emacs, from git, this morning.  It'd been a while (several
months) since I had last built emacs so I expected some (usually subtle)
changes.  However, I have an error that comes up every time I try to add
or delete a single ELPA etc. package:

--8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
Debugger entered--Lisp error: (wrong-type-argument stringp (evil ...))
  #<subr string-lessp>((evil ...) julia-mode)
  package--save-selected-packages((golden-ratio [...] gnuplot (evil ...) which-key ...))
  package--update-selected-packages(nil (#s(package-desc :name hyperbole :version (9 0 0) :summary "GNU Hyperbole: The Everyday Hypertextual Information Manager" :reqs ((emacs (27 1))) :kind nil :archive nil :dir "/home/ucecesf/.emacs.d/elpa,v30/hyperbole-9.0.0" :extras ((:url . "http://www.gnu.org/software/hyperbole") (:keywords "comm" "convenience" "files" "frames" "hypermedia" "languages" "mail" "matching" "mouse" "multimedia" "outlines" "tools" "wp") (:maintainer ("Bob Weiner" . "rsw@gnu.org") ("Mats Lidell" . "matsl@gnu.org")) (:commit . "e1483d9cff137ca7663694da1df56b31cfc7958d")) :signed t)))
  package-menu-execute()
  funcall-interactively(package-menu-execute)
  command-execute(package-menu-execute)
--8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---

Long list of packages in above elided but what is interesting is the
third line which has a list that starts with golden-ratio and then,
after gnuplot, there is a list as an entry, after which are more
packages.  Not sure why this is happening so any pointers would be
welcome.

Thank you,
eric

PS - I'm trying to remove the hyperbole package because it seems to have
annoyingly hijacked eww-browse-url.

-- 
Eric S Fraga via gnus (Emacs 30.0.50 2024-02-22) on Debian 12.2