Keir Starmer is the United Kingdom’s sixth prime minster in the past ten years. For a country that likes to think of itself as the birthplace of modern democracy and a model of stability in a turbulent world, this is not a good look.
It’s also a painful reminder that democratic politics everywhere is becoming increasingly febrile.
Much of the chaos that has characterised contemporary British politics has been self-inflicted. The self-promoting Conservative prime ministers who preceded Starmer – Boris Johnson and Liz Truss – were clearly part of the problem. But others have made catastrophic errors of judgement, too. David Cameron’s decision to have a referendum about leaving the European Union is an egregious case in point.
