As British Prime Minister Keir Starmer faces calls to resign for his appointment of Epstein-tied Peter Mandelson as ambassador to the United States, one is struck by the sudden instability of British governments. In the 28 years between 1979 and 2007, Britain had only three prime ministers, while in the 19 years since 2007, it has had seven, and may soon have eight. Only one of those, David Cameron, carried his party to a reelection victory, and he resigned a year after being beaten in the Brexit referendum.

It’s not just leaders who have stumbled. Even historically long-lasting parties have. Britain’s Conservatives, who, since the party’s founding in 1846, 180 years ago, have been the most electorally successful party anywhere, are polling at 19% today. So is the Labour Party, founded in 1900 and Britain’s second party since 1923, 103 years ago.

Similarly, elsewhere in Europe, France’s historic socialist, communist, and Gaullist parties have more or less disappeared, and the National Rally, dismissed as unthinkable, to the point that the judicial establishment disqualified it from the ballot, still leads the polls under its 30-year-old successor.

Germany’s Social Democrats, founded in the 1880s, were swept in and promptly swept out of office, while the Christian Democrats, the descendants of the anti-Nazi Catholic Center party, have barely been holding their own against the oft-denounced AfD.

Italy’s dominant asymmetric duo, for two generations after World War II, the Christian Democrats and the Communists, fell on bad times in the 1990s, with the fading of belief in their founding faiths, Catholicism and communism. Dominant figures since then have been media millionaire Silvio Berlusconi, the Five-Star party founded by a comedian, and current prime minister, Georgia........

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