"It used to be football managers who measured their time at a club in months. Or even days at Spurs. Anything over two years qualifies you for a long service medal. Now it's prime ministers. In fact it's worse than that. Because it's also people who might one day be prime minister. While some Labour MPs are working out how to get rid of Keir Starmer, others are already plotting how to force Wes Streeting out of office should he jump the gun before Andy Burnham is ready to launch his challenge."
"Who knows where all this could end? Somewhere in the metasphere. It can't be long before Liz Truss is no longer our shortest serving prime minister. Long live the lettuce. Even as I write, Zia Yusuf is probably compiling a dossier on Nigel Farage's mysterious donations so that he can force him out of office sometime in 2030. I think we can take it that no one will be doing the same for Kemi Badenoch as she doesn't have a prayer of making it to Downing Street."
"But you can't say that Labour hasn't learned from the Tories. They too have turned politics into a rolling psychodrama. Theresa May was removed because she couldn't get Brexit done. Boris Johnson was kicked out for his venality and rule-breaking. Radon Liz had to go because she was completely hopeless. Somehow the Tories were in such a hurry to find a replacement for Boris they forgot to ask Liz to conduct a basic intelligence test."
"So now, less than two years after winning a 170-seat majority, Starmer finds himself on the verge of being forced to resign, with more than 80 of his MPs including several ministers having publicly called for him to go. Shabana Mahmood and Yvette Cooper told him the same thing in private. Keir's crime? To have just been not very inspiring. To have been the Keir he always had been."
Political tenure has shifted from measuring club time in months to measuring prime-ministerial time in even shorter spans. Labour MPs consider removing Keir Starmer while others plan to force out Wes Streeting if he acts before Andy Burnham is ready. The same pattern is imagined for future figures, including Nigel Farage and Liz Truss. The piece argues that the Conservatives have also turned politics into a rolling psychodrama, removing Theresa May for failing to deliver Brexit, Boris Johnson for rule-breaking, and Liz Truss for incompetence. It claims Starmer now faces calls for resignation after less than two years, with many MPs publicly urging him to go, and attributes the alleged cause to a lack of inspiration rather than a new change in character.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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