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Ah this was. The uninstall didn't remove these so removing with the following looks like it did the trick:

sudo rm /Library/PrivilegedHelperTools/com.docker.vmnetd || true
sudo rm /Library/PrivilegedHelperTools/com.docker.socket || true

that service is from a prior install of Docker Desktop though. its the service that handles sensitive activities like hosts updates etc. if you don't use DD you can just nuke those files

Thank you for your help. This unlocked a pain I have been seeing since migrating to Rancher Desktop.