This year I have been covering the declining fortunes of Sir Keir Starmer, the now former British prime minister, as emblematic of a deteriorating political stability situation across the pond. Well, Monday was the day Starmer left 10 Downing Street and Andy Burnham, mayor of Manchester, walked in. And so now we can update the graphic.
But I also wanted to added some additional context and go back in time to the first British prime minister, Sir Robert Walpole. For a quick Wednesday morning post, this is a bit rushed because some nuances like how this design represents historical parties and coalitions when the party political system was early and evolving. Maybe I will return to this later, but for now it shows a pretty clear story. Of late, British prime ministers have not had lengthy periods of political stability.
What really comes through here is how in the modern era, when parties and parliamentary sovereignty were far more established, how lengthy and stable the Thatcher and Blair ministries were compared to their peers, but how since Cameron—and arguably the Brexit vote—the British prime minister cannot get a full four or five years in office.
Credit for the piece is mine.