16th May 2026
This was a week when we got to consider the office of Prime Minister, again.
The current occupant has somehow, through a sequence of decisions and non-decisions, made themselves a lame duck – despite a thumping majority two years ago and three years of a parliamentary terms to go. It is quite an impressive under-achievement, given the powers and privileges a Prime Minister has at their disposal.
But for a Prime Minister to be on their way out is, as this blog has stated before, not unusual. Since 1974 every single Prime Minister has come to office or left office between general elections, and recently both. The classic model of a Prime Minister coming and leaving power at a general elections has not happened in over fifty years.
What, however, is becoming distinctive is the speed with which Prime Ministers come and go. Since 2016 the churn has been quite remarkable. The long terms of Thatcher (eleven years) and Blair (ten years) now seem form another age.
Why?
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Alan Beattie of the Financial Times observes:
“If you think the UK changes PMs too often, which of the last 5 departures were mistakes? Cameron shd have stayed after losing the referendum? May after deadlock with her deal? Johnson after Partygate? Truss after meltdown? And Sunak lost an election.”
He makes a good point: circumstances and events explain each of the recent changes which, taken together, appears to be rapid churn, if not turmoil.
And Beattie links to this fine article by Robert Shrimsley which avers:
“Britain is not ungovernable. It has just been very badly governed. In particular, it has endured a decade of woefully inept leadership.”
The problem thereby is not so much with the office, but with its occupants.
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Over at his Substack Sam Freedman offers a view which mixes structural and personal points:
“Why do prime ministers keep failing?
“[One suggested reason] is that we’ve just had a really bad run of leaders who either lacked basic political skills, were temperamentally unsuited for the job, or were Liz Truss.
“[But] there are some deeper structural problems that are undoubtedly making it harder to be prime minister.
“[…] there are some uniquely British challenges with being prime minister that make it harder than necessary. The role has evolved in a typically haphazard way over the decades, without much thought as to its purpose.”
Freedman’s analysis is typically well-informed and insightful.
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My view, which I had already put together before I saw any of the above commentators, is that there is structural gap in our constitutional arrangements where the office of the Prime Minister should be.
Indeed, until the lifetimes of people still alive, the constitutional fiction was that the office of Prime Minister had no legal existence at all.
Other than with a few express statutory powers, the powers (and privileges) of the Prime Minister are still almost entirely to be inferred from the royal prerogative and from being the head of a Commons majority. Prime Ministers can remove ministers (and civil servants) from their jobs and impose whips on backbenchers, and make certain other decisions.
But unless you have an individual of exceptional charisma and/or capacity, coupled with reliable allies in other cabinet jobs and substantial backbench support, a Prime Minister is vulnerable to political downturns.
In this way, despite what pundits sometimes say otherwise, we very much have a parliamentary and not a presidential system.
And so when one faces a sequence of difficult political challenges, as the United Kingdom has had since 2016, the tendency will be for Prime Ministers to fold.
Part of it is as Beattie and Shrimsley point out: the occupants have not been up to the challenges they have faced. But the occupants also have not had firm places to stand.
The job of Prime Minister is, for the reasons detailed by Freedman, becoming more and more difficult to do. There is no particular reason to believe any successor to the current occupant will do any better job. (It is telling that many think the only viable candidate is not one of the already elected members of parliament.)
And so, as I set out, over at Prospect, there is a prime minister-shaped hole in our constitutional arrangements.
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We ended up with a poor prime minister because the Labour Party would have won the 2024 election whoever was leading it. The Tory Party imploded and handed Labour a landslide victory on a reduced vote. It didn’t need a charismatic or politically talented politician to win. We’ve had similar PMs in the past, but not one who came to office by winning an election.
Replacing Keir Starmer is essential. There is no coming back from such open dissent. Like a football manager who has lost the dressing room, he has to be replaced to improve results and avoid relegation.
Our constitution has evolved to cope with such eventualities. With luck it will do so again.
I disagree with your subjective view that we have a poor prime minister. Bad mid-term local election results are entirely a thing, and they are not a reason to replace the party leader. Your football manager analogy is weak at best, more arguably pointless: Keir Starmer is being savaged by the Press and SM, not the ‘dressing room’, unless you attach importance to the misguided and poorly-timed move by Streeting (the clue to that move’s baseness lies in the self regarding tone of his resignation letter). Starmer has a mandate to do a job that the country desperately needs, and unlike many he is uniquely qualified to do it. At a time when unity is required, division and the rhetoric that fuels it is abhorrent.
It’s not just my subjective view. Many Labour voters felt the same. Starmer had record low approval ratings long before the recent local elections. Don’t forget the poor results in last years elections too.
His early mistakes in power were forgivable, but the subsequent U turns have only been forced by rebellions among his MPs. His instinct was to blunder on. Worst of all there was no plan for growth. Just empty promises of change. He only moves fast on law and order.
Then there’s his lack of charisma and political instincts. That has caused him to be led by a narrow group of like-minded advisers. The MSM has had an effect but the outright hatred he generates among Reform supporters comes entirely from social media campaigns. Originated by “Tommy Robinson” and amplified by Elon Musk.
“But unless you have an individual of exceptional charisma and/or capacity, ”
Heath? Wilson?
Just a thought ………
It is a daft thought.
Wilson was able to keep a cabinet together with significant figures – Jenkins, Benn, Healey, Callaghan etc. He also oversaw a government pass significant legislation. He won 3 of the 4 general elections he fought.
Heath also managed to keep a discordant cabinet together, and get UK in the EEC.
Both Wilson and Heath had significant capacity, and in the then-new TV age Wilson had charisma.
You write in Prospect “Prime Ministers need structural power” but do not specify what this power should be.
Would it be the power to ignore or overrule Parliament, as Boris Johnson tried to do for a while? I don’t remember that being particularly popular or successful.
Or would it be more flexibility in appointing and dismissing members of government? But British PMs have much more freedom in this respect than most other Prime Ministers.
I suspect the problem is the combination of First-Past-the-Post elections with parliamentary government. Proportional representation, as in most European systems, leads to coalition government meaning that the power of the PM is automatically constrained. FPTP with a strong President is not perfect but has more clearly defined roles for Parliament and executive. Our mixture leads to the problems you describe.
You ask one good question, which I was tempted to answer. But you then ask two rhetorical questions that made me think I should not bother here. Both are red herrings.
In an era when the formation of opinions precedes by several days or weeks the absorption of knowledge, (if that absorption happens at all), I wonder how a (magically resurrected) Clement Attlee would cope with the task today.
On the structural gap, Lynn and Jay put it well:
“Although there are lots of things people want the Prime Minister to do, lots of things he should do, and any number of things he can do, there are very few things he has to do.”