Does it seem as if almost anyone could be Britain's next prime minister? Blame David Cameron | Zoe Williams

"Boxing starts out a legit contest between boys and men trying to render one another unconscious; then it morphs into strongman pantomiming, with one amazing boxer in the ring and have-a-go heroes trying their luck; then it starts to lean in to its showbiz elements; and after that it's chaos. The strongman is suddenly wrestling a donkey called Steve (this really happened). People are slicing lemons with swords in the interval. It's all a terrible stain on the noble sport, and yet it looks revivified, because suddenly every idiot in town thinks he can have a go."

"Which is more or less what's happened to the office of prime minister, and I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that this, unlike everything else to befall this stricken nation, is not Keir Starmer's fault. Amazed as I am to even type this, it's not Boris Johnson's fault. It started with David Cameron. His justification for seeking the highest office was: I think I'd be rather good at it."

"But what is often forgotten in that narrative of an indolent, entitled youngish man who was raised to look at complicated systems and think, Who better to steward that than myself? is that his real triumph was at the Tory conference in 2005, when he came off as the breath of fresh air needed by a party that had been uncharacteristically out of power for nearly a decade."

"Though you know what they say about Conservatives: they're always in power, only sometimes in office. Or at least, that's what they used to say, in the old days of wrestling sorry, Westminster. Cast your mind back to 2005, unless you want to stay cheerful, in which case go and do literally anything else. The other candidates"

Boxing and wrestling in east and south-east London changed from organized contests between boys and men to spectacles featuring strongmen, showbiz elements, and escalating chaos. The transformation included absurd acts such as wrestling a donkey and staged interval performances like slicing lemons with swords. The sport was treated as a stain on something noble, yet it also seemed revived because more people believed they could participate. A similar pattern is applied to the prime minister’s office, where the role has become more like a public performance with disorderly entrants. The blame is placed less on current figures and more on earlier political developments, beginning with David Cameron’s rise.

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