John Oxley: Are we in a new phase for all Prime Ministers? The era of ‘two year Keir’
This deserves loud pushback.
John Oxley is a consultant, writer, and broadcaster. His SubStack is Joxley Writes.
While the Starmer project limps on from crisis to scandal, the Prime Minister’s days as Labour leader seem numbered.
His cabinet might still be behind him, but given the prospect of bruising local elections, he seems more useful to them as a human shield than as a PM.
Starmer’s route to political survival is narrow and requires a level of good judgment that has so far eluded him. Few would bet on the PM being in place by the end of the year; fewer still would bet on seeing out his term. His eventual defenestration will emphasise a new trend in British politics: the short tenure of top officeholders.
If Starmer goes over the summer, there’s a chance he will have served less time in Number 10 than Rishi Sunak. Should he fall by mid-July, we will have had 7 Prime Ministers in a decade, counting from the last days of the Cameron ministry. This would be a record unseen since the 1820s and the tumultuous days of the Reform Act, Catholic emancipation, and the Corn Laws. Even if one ignores the precise dates and records, it represents a significant change in modern British politics.
Since the fall of Cameron, no Prime Minister has completed a full electoral term. Each of his successors has run out of political road before then. Most have been done in by their own party when their political capital was exhausted. Only Rishi Sunak was ousted by the public. Perhaps even more remarkably, Edward Heath was the last Prime Minister to enter and exit Downing Street via an election. It appears that two or three years of leadership is becoming the new norm.
Plenty has been written about why that is.
The more generous assessments point to the difficulties of running modern Britain, a country where growth has stalled, demography is placing greater demands on the state, and there are few politically easy answers. Others have pointed to lacklustre politicians. For each of the names in the last decade, it is easy to point to the personal and political misjudgements that undid them. The true reason is likely a combination of both – difficult circumstances often played badly.
Whatever the reason, the rapid cycling of Prime Ministers raises questions about the stability of government and policy. If short tenures, often less than an electoral cycle, become the norm, this would challenge how we conduct politics. These are real issues of legitimacy, of how government operates, and of how those who rely on it respond. Understanding them is important for how our politics functions in an era of increased instability.
Whenever there is a change of PM, oppositions like to crow about an “unelected” leader taking over, constitutionally, they are misguided. At the technical level, we elect MPs, …
This deserves loud pushback.
John Oxley is a consultant, writer, and broadcaster. His SubStack is Joxley Writes.
While the Starmer project limps on from crisis to scandal, the Prime Minister’s days as Labour leader seem numbered.
His cabinet might still be behind him, but given the prospect of bruising local elections, he seems more useful to them as a human shield than as a PM.
Starmer’s route to political survival is narrow and requires a level of good judgment that has so far eluded him. Few would bet on the PM being in place by the end of the year; fewer still would bet on seeing out his term. His eventual defenestration will emphasise a new trend in British politics: the short tenure of top officeholders.
If Starmer goes over the summer, there’s a chance he will have served less time in Number 10 than Rishi Sunak. Should he fall by mid-July, we will have had 7 Prime Ministers in a decade, counting from the last days of the Cameron ministry. This would be a record unseen since the 1820s and the tumultuous days of the Reform Act, Catholic emancipation, and the Corn Laws. Even if one ignores the precise dates and records, it represents a significant change in modern British politics.
Since the fall of Cameron, no Prime Minister has completed a full electoral term. Each of his successors has run out of political road before then. Most have been done in by their own party when their political capital was exhausted. Only Rishi Sunak was ousted by the public. Perhaps even more remarkably, Edward Heath was the last Prime Minister to enter and exit Downing Street via an election. It appears that two or three years of leadership is becoming the new norm.
Plenty has been written about why that is.
The more generous assessments point to the difficulties of running modern Britain, a country where growth has stalled, demography is placing greater demands on the state, and there are few politically easy answers. Others have pointed to lacklustre politicians. For each of the names in the last decade, it is easy to point to the personal and political misjudgements that undid them. The true reason is likely a combination of both – difficult circumstances often played badly.
Whatever the reason, the rapid cycling of Prime Ministers raises questions about the stability of government and policy. If short tenures, often less than an electoral cycle, become the norm, this would challenge how we conduct politics. These are real issues of legitimacy, of how government operates, and of how those who rely on it respond. Understanding them is important for how our politics functions in an era of increased instability.
Whenever there is a change of PM, oppositions like to crow about an “unelected” leader taking over, constitutionally, they are misguided. At the technical level, we elect MPs, …
John Oxley: Are we in a new phase for all Prime Ministers? The era of ‘two year Keir’
This deserves loud pushback.
John Oxley is a consultant, writer, and broadcaster. His SubStack is Joxley Writes.
While the Starmer project limps on from crisis to scandal, the Prime Minister’s days as Labour leader seem numbered.
His cabinet might still be behind him, but given the prospect of bruising local elections, he seems more useful to them as a human shield than as a PM.
Starmer’s route to political survival is narrow and requires a level of good judgment that has so far eluded him. Few would bet on the PM being in place by the end of the year; fewer still would bet on seeing out his term. His eventual defenestration will emphasise a new trend in British politics: the short tenure of top officeholders.
If Starmer goes over the summer, there’s a chance he will have served less time in Number 10 than Rishi Sunak. Should he fall by mid-July, we will have had 7 Prime Ministers in a decade, counting from the last days of the Cameron ministry. This would be a record unseen since the 1820s and the tumultuous days of the Reform Act, Catholic emancipation, and the Corn Laws. Even if one ignores the precise dates and records, it represents a significant change in modern British politics.
Since the fall of Cameron, no Prime Minister has completed a full electoral term. Each of his successors has run out of political road before then. Most have been done in by their own party when their political capital was exhausted. Only Rishi Sunak was ousted by the public. Perhaps even more remarkably, Edward Heath was the last Prime Minister to enter and exit Downing Street via an election. It appears that two or three years of leadership is becoming the new norm.
Plenty has been written about why that is.
The more generous assessments point to the difficulties of running modern Britain, a country where growth has stalled, demography is placing greater demands on the state, and there are few politically easy answers. Others have pointed to lacklustre politicians. For each of the names in the last decade, it is easy to point to the personal and political misjudgements that undid them. The true reason is likely a combination of both – difficult circumstances often played badly.
Whatever the reason, the rapid cycling of Prime Ministers raises questions about the stability of government and policy. If short tenures, often less than an electoral cycle, become the norm, this would challenge how we conduct politics. These are real issues of legitimacy, of how government operates, and of how those who rely on it respond. Understanding them is important for how our politics functions in an era of increased instability.
Whenever there is a change of PM, oppositions like to crow about an “unelected” leader taking over, constitutionally, they are misguided. At the technical level, we elect MPs, …
0 Comments
0 Shares
38 Views
0 Reviews
