Jun 25, 2026 16:45 pm IST

Opinion | Britain Seems To Have A New National Hobby: Firing Its Prime Ministers

Britain's Prime Ministers are dropping like mayflies, and nobody seems to be able to stop the mayhem.

Syed Zubair Ahmed Syed Zubair Ahmed Columnist

Syed Zubair Ahmed Columnist

The tale of Britain's revolving-door prime ministers has become an embarrassment, if not the outright butt of social media jokes and memes.The churning at alarming regularity in Downing Street looks less like democratic renewal and more like political musical chairs. The country once prided itself on political stability. Not long ago, Margaret Thatcher spent more than a decade in Downing Street. Tony Blair lasted 10 years. Even David Cameron survived six. Today, however, the world's one of the oldest democracies suffers from an unbelievable inability to keep a prime minister in office.

If Andy Burnham eventually succeeds Keir Starmer, Britain will have had seven prime ministers in roughly a decade: David Cameron, Theresa May, Boris Johnson, Liz Truss, Rishi Sunak, Keir Starmer and now Burnham or someone else. For a country that likes to lecture others on stable democratic governance, it is an astonishing but quite worrying record.

The most obvious question is why. Why has British democracy become so politically restless? Why do prime ministers now seem to have shorter shelf lives and are found easily disposable?

Some here believe that the easy answer is Brexit. The referendum simply divided Britain. It also shattered the political consensus that had ruled the country for decades. It exposed deep tensions between London and the rest of the country, between younger and older voters, between those who felt globalisation had benefited them and those who felt abandoned by it.

No British prime minister since Brexit has truly escaped those divisions. Theresa May was consumed by trying to implement Brexit. Boris Johnson won power by promising to "Get Brexit Done" but discovered that slogans are easier than governing. Liz Truss destroyed her own premiership in a matter of weeks. One saw Rishi Sunak coming as a breath of fresh air. He inherited a broken Conservative Party but carried on bravely until he was undone by the weight of his own promises. 

Keir Starmer, who also inherited a........

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