Forgive me for being glib. But it would be hard to distinguish Britain’s political decade from that of a banana republic. The country might be facing its seventh prime minister in ten years*.

Keir Starmer has 404 seats yet plenty are calling for his head. His closest aide just resigned. And then another one. None of this is unfamiliar: Theresa May was undone by her own party over Brexit, Boris Johnson was mired in scandal, Rishi Sunak took over an already-defeated operation. Liz Truss – well, she was even less suited to the primacy than any of them.

When Labour won that landslide in summer 2024 it was on a vague promise to restore normality to British democracy. Fourteen years of Tory rule had become untenable, their internecine warfare no longer amusing. Starmer might not set the room on fire; his adenoidal pitchy voice can grate. And what about all that plodding legalism? But the point remained – he was normal, he was boring, he believed in standards and probity. Politics was about to be dull again.

Well, we all called that wrong, didn’t we. And not just the media or the parliamentary party, but British voters too. As it turns out, the Tories of the 2010s and early 2020s were not uniquely predisposed toward regicide. Labour is just as capable and just as willing – no matter that it promised to expunge the........

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