Why Britain struggles to hold onto its prime ministers

LONDON — Keir Starmer has survived a political near-death experience. And he’s just the latest British prime minister to look shaky in the job.

Less than two years after walking into No. 10 Downing Street, Britain’s leader is already facing calls to quit from his own party — and embarking on yet another reset of his operation to try to turn things around.

His recent predecessors as prime minister may have some sympathy.

Former Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron’s sudden departure from No. 10 in 2016 after Britain’s vote to leave the European Union triggered a period of unprecedented churn in British politics. None of his successors — Theresa May, Boris Johnson, Liz Truss or Rishi Sunak — served a full parliamentary term. Three were ousted from high office by their own side.

It wasn’t always this way: Prime ministers used to last.

Margaret Thatcher completed 11 years at the top, spending the whole of the 1980s in No. 10. Her successor John Major lasted six-and-a-half years, and Labour Prime Minister Tony Blair enjoyed more than a decade in power.

So what’s going on? From acute cost-of-living pressures to a weak No. 10, POLITICO’s Westminster Insider podcast asked historians and former political advisers why it now seems impossible for a British prime minister to last very long at the top. 

It’s the economy, stupid — David Runciman, political historian

David Runciman is a political historian and host of the “Past, Present, Future” podcast. He believes Britain’s instability is not unique — and is driven by a global cost-of-living squeeze.

“Incumbency is harder because the world is a harder place to govern,” he says, pointing to the U.S., which has turfed presidents out after a single term in recent years.

Runciman’s prime culprit? Rising prices, which he describes as “the killer of governments.”

“In the seventies, when inflation was rampant, no democratic government anywhere in the world survived,” he points out. 

The chaos of modern media — Katie Perrior, former Downing Street director of communications to Theresa May

Katie Perrior was Theresa May’s director of communications between 2016 and 2019.

“Incumbency is harder because the world is a harder place to govern,” said David Runciman, pointing to the U.S., which has turfed presidents out after a single term in recent years | Michael Nguyen/NurPhoto via Getty Images

May lasted fewer than three years in office after trying — and failing — to negotiate a Brexit deal with the European Union that she could also get the U.K. parliament to approve.

Perrior reckons Westminster’s frenzied 24/7 media environment is largely to blame for making the U.K. “ungovernable.”

No. 10 is ill-equipped for the demands of the modern media age, she says, and a government without a clear plan can very easily be blown off course. “You’re just being dragged into 20, 30 different crises at once,” Perrior warns.

The messaging service WhatsApp also helped promote a culture of disobedience among MPs opposed to May’s leadership, Perrior argues. “Wild rumors spread. Backbenchers get themselves into a position of absolute paranoia,” she adds.

No. 10 is under-powered — ex-Foreign Office adviser Ben Judah 

Ben Judah recently left government after almost two years as a special adviser to David Lammy in the Foreign Office and Ministry of Justice.

He says the No. 10 operation is too poorly staffed and underpowered to get what it wants out of SW1 mandarins — especially given the huge scope of government in the modern era.

“When you get to the summit of that power, No. 10 isn’t a commanding office,” he argues. “Really, it’s a glorified Victorian private office that doesn’t have enough staff to actually pull together all the resources around it in Whitehall that only it can ultimately command to make change.”

Judah thinks No. 10 should be given its own department to tackle what he sees as the weakness at the centre of the British state.

Political inexperience — historian and author Anthony Seldon

Anthony Seldon has written a biography of almost every living prime minister — so the past few years have kept him pretty busy.

He puts the lack of prime ministerial longevity down to the “massive collapsing” of the experience of those walking through the doors of No. 10.

Seldon points out that in the modern era many prime ministers arrive in the role with minimal experience of running a government department.

He believes modern politics often rewards potent campaigners rather than diligent administrators, who might have more experience of what it means to run a government.

This is a “very significant” factor in explaining why recent prime ministers “don’t know how to do the job,” he says. 

“Being leader of the opposition is a pretty good test. Blair had that. Cameron had that, and Starmer had that. But it’s not like running anything,” he adds.