Nearly 30% of all Britain’s postwar prime ministers will have been in office in the past six years, all from the same party. But the cause of this chronic political instability is not just Tory psychodrama: it’s an economic model that has failed to deliver rising living standards.
David Cameron’s political career was consumed by a referendum result in which resentment over stagnating incomes played a key role: as one detailed academic study found, “Dissatisfaction over austerity measures was significant enough to give the leave campaign its majority.” When Theresa May’s premiership was fatally wounded by the snap election of 2017, voters’ rage at years of financial struggle – and a belief that Labour was best placed to do something about it – proved pivotal. While Boris Johnson was felled by deceit over illicit partying, public anger at an escalating cost of living crisis – and the Tories’ failure to address it – was crucial in suppressing Tory polling, leading his MPs to conclude he was no longer an electoral asset and could therefore be discarded. As for Liz Truss: well, no further explanation is necessary.
